Break My Heart, Break Your Heart
by nbknight
Summary: Overwatch is but a shadow of its former self. Those who managed to evade arrest or capture struggle valiantly, and old friends recruit new ones to continue the fight against the ever encroaching Talon. Lena desperately searches for a sliver of good in Talon's most prized assassin. She remembers the woman that Widowmaker once was, even if Widowmaker herself does not.
1. Non-Stop

Light bumping around in the nearby kitchen woke her at first, but for a minute, she tried not to move, keeping her eyes closed and hoping whatever the noises were would cease. She wanted to go back to sleep. Her hamstring had different ideas for her, though, and started twisting – cramping from being folded up for so long. She didn't know how long she'd been laying there, all she knew was that she wanted to keep laying there. Her muscles ached from overexertion and lack of proper diet. The gears of her mind started whirring and clicking together as the hum of her chronal accelerator brought her still sleepy mind to the surface.

She stretched, hamstring protesting indignantly, and grunted as she sat up. Her face felt like it had been nicely buffed with sandpaper from laying on the godawful recliner Winston had once dragged up. The hideous maroon monster sat in the corner of what was once a living room but now housed stackable cots, a semi-functional steel table that served as a mobile operating table, two other recliners, a couch, and a television. The furniture was a mish mosh of secondhand castaways, repurposed and sometimes reupholstered for the developing safehouses. Winston was a proud scientist. He would never admit the struggle of rebuilding an empire from scratch.

The television blinked on. "Hello, Lena."

"Hey, Athena." Lena rubbed her sleepy eyes, digging sleepy goop out of the corners.

"Did you rest well? I detect lower iron levels in your blood. You should probably t-"

"Caffeine first. Talking later." Her throat felt scratchy.

The television, showing only Athena's logo, somehow looked amused and blinked off. Lena shuffled to the kitchen, rubbing her face.

"Hello, sleepyhead." A lightly accented voice came from behind an open refrigerator door, and Angela Ziegler stood, holding two cheeses and some apples. She kicked the door closed and set her things on the kitchen's island. "How are you feeling?"

Lena gave Angela a shifty look. "Why is everyone here such a morning person?" She fluffed her hair and scratched at her exposed leg. "Mind putting the kettle on?"

Angela smiled pleasantly and hummed along to some unknown tune, grabbing Lena's sky blue kettle off of a rack and filling it with water. "Should I even ask how long you were running around before you showed up here last night?"

Lena plopped down in one of the chairs opposite of Angela. "You shouldn't, but I'm sure you already know." She cast a glace toward the monitor in the kitchen. Athena blinked on for only a second and blinked away again. That AI had a sense of humor. "Tea first, lecture later. I beg of you." She cracked her stiff neck a few times. "How long was I out?"

Angela looked over at the clock on the wall behind Lena. "You've been here for about eighteen hours. You've been sleeping for the last sixteen or so."

Lena's blood ran cold and her jaw went slack. A flare of anger flashed in her chest. "Why did you let me sleep that long, Angela?" She felt like crying. "I've wasted so much time! I can't afford to waste all this time!" She stood, her chair squalling against the tile.

Angela went around the island and gently pushed Lena back in her chair. "Sit. You're going to spend some time not running around. Believe it or not, we're all worried about you. Now, what kind of tea do you want?" A smug edge touched Angela's tone.

"Have mercy on me, Ang."

Angela's dainty nose wrinkled. She hated that pun.

Lena sighed and gave her a pointed look. "What's best for a headache, then?"

"If I were choosing your tea, it would be a tranquilizer, but chamomile and peppermint would be fitting for your current state." Angela stood on her toes to pluck two neat boxes of still-wrapped tea. She peeled off the cellophane just as the water began whistling. "You need to take a break, Lena. That's my professional opinion. I know you haven't been assigned anything, so before you claim a secret mission, I've already confirmed with Winston that you have none. Whatever you're hunting… Whoever you're hunting… It can't be worth dying over."

Lena watched as Angela pulled out two mismatched cups from the cabinet over the stove, plopped in the teabags, and poured steaming water in both cups. Angela took the cup with flowers. Lena took the cup with polka dots. Angela looked distastefully at the apples and cheese beside her. She'd apparently lost her appetite.

Lena tried to put on a brave face, feeling the exhaustion coloring the undertone of her words. "It's just some personal business, love. It's nothing major."

Angela nearly snarled – a rare oddity for her. "'Nothing major,' you say. Coming home battered, bruised, bloodied, and exhausted is nothing major. Lena, you're out there killing yourself over nothing major. Give me a break. Give yourself a break. Even I take a break every now and then."

Her matronly miasma pulsed with near physical tangibility, but her professional eyes scanned Lena's face, inevitably noting the heavy circles under her eyes. In a flash, Angela turned off her professional side and returned to the loving woman everyone knew, but that flash of determination Lena had seen more than once on a battlefield. That look in her eye showed up when she was trying to keep someone on the brink of death alive. Lena softened at that realization. Angela just wanted to keep her safe and in one piece.

"I'll take today off," Lena grumbled.

Angela's eyes analyzed the seated woman carefully before she nodded, almost to herself it seemed.

Lena cleared her throat and looked around, picking up her teacup. "So how many of us are here?"

The older woman leaned on the island and sighed, seeming grateful for the change of subject. The woman wouldn't push too terribly hard for Lena to divulge her purposes, but eventually, if Lena knew anything about her, she would get her answers. "Aleksandra and Mei arrived late last night after you left the med…" She trailed off mid-word, a sad, nostalgic look in her eyes. Lena interpreted the look quickly. Angela nearly called the metal slab in the general sleeping area her Med-Bay. "After I got you patched up. Hana's here, of course, but Winston left because of something like there being 'too many operatives in one place.'" She waved her hands around and rolled her eyes. "Something about it being a security risk. He still treats everything like old times, but perhaps, it is for the better to be overly cautious."

Lena snorted. How very like Winston. He still tried to keep up the almost nonexistent protocol left behind by Overwatch. That was one of the top rules at the time. When meeting outside of team assigned activity or Overwatch headquarters, limit agents to five or less.

She started to take a sip from her still piping hot cup and Angela gave her another stern glare. "Drinking tea less than five minutes after you brew increases chances for mouth and throat cancer."

Lena lowered her cup, smiling a little. Angela was such a… mom. Sure, she was a fierce adversary, a miracle working doctor and surgeon, and a battle hardened soldier, but she cared deeply. She loved deeply. Sometimes her deliveries weren't the best, and sometimes her words came out too harsh, but no matter what she said, everyone knew it came from a good place.

"I'm going to be lucky to make it a few years," Lena quipped back, knocking on her chronal accelerator. "If this baby even has a bad minute, I might never come back. I'm not exactly worried about cancer."

Angela did not smile. "As long as I am here, though, I will try to protect you from the potential horrors of this world."

This world.

Lena never talked much about her time Between, after the plane accident, but Angela knew that it was an alien experience – and not the kind of alien experience you'd see in the movies. It was an experience beyond explanation. Lena still had nightmares about not existing.

"I love you too, mum."

The worn corners of Angela's mouth raised, her angelic aura feeling incredibly potent. "I do love you, lilla gumman."

Little darling. Angela, for all her motherly inclinations, rarely used terms of endearment; in fact, the only one she consistently used them for was Hana. Hana felt like everyone's younger sibling, or for Angela, one of her many adopted children.

"Hey, scrubs, are you finished clogging up the kitchen? This soldier needs some grub." Hana Song's smug voice came from the second doorway into the kitchen, nearest to the front door. She slouched against the frame, looking down at both Lena and Angela with a grin fit to match the Cheshire cat. She dressed similarly to the other two, a black t-shirt and some shorts, but instead of being plain knit, her shirt boasted a very large, very yellow Pikachu with great bold letters underneath – Pokémon! The little "o" was shaped like a pokéball. She schlepped into the room and began rummaging through the fridge, only to settle for Angela's abandoned apples and cheese. "I'm starved."

Angela propped her chin on her hand. "Yes, do help yourself, child."

A memory of how Lena, Angela, and Hana had first started working together in a few "vigilante" missions in Korea rose in Lena's mind. Well, they had been vigilante missions for Lena and Angela. After Winston had initiated the recall, Angela had tried to coax Hana to take leave from the military to join them to help out, but Hana had resisted. She was living the life. Lena had ended up coaxing Hana into it with a dare. A silly thing, maybe, but it worked better on the girl than Angela's heartfelt plea.

Hana wasn't an asshole. She was just… smug. She tended to look like some tiny, Korean James Bond when she spoke; sometimes, Lena wanted to smack  
that smarmy grin right off her face, but Hana was really just a kid. It got too  
easy to forget that sometimes. Besides, Hana was downright sincere and  
kindhearted at her core. War had made her grow up fast, but she still hadn't  
gone through all her settling down.

Hell, Lena thought to herself. If I had been some big hotshot like that at her  
age, my head would be twice as big. But  
she had been one of the best pilots so young, and look where that had gotten her. She was now a washed up vigilante, never mind a former Overwatch agent, who was little more than a ticking timebomb and running on borrowed space-time. The feeling that someday her time would run out breathed down her neck in her  
every waking moment. It's why Angela called her reckless. She didn't have time to waste because the next second she could be thrown into a kabillion pieces.

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a hefty hand on her shoulder. "What bothers you, little pup?"

Lena hadn't noticed Aleksandra and Mei come through. The moderately sized kitchen felt smaller with five people in it. "Hiya, love. Didn't notice you come through." Mei sat next to Lena, chewing on her thumbnail and scrolling her phone. Some environmental article showed its mice type on her screen. Lena turned her attention back to Zarya. "What's a load of cuties like you doing in a place like this?"

Zarya laughed her booming laugh and went to the coffee pot, fixing herself a few tablespoons of the darkest ground bean Lena had ever laid eyes on. Lena noticed that Zarya's tag was on the wrong side of her shirt… rather, her shirt was on inside out. "Are you trying to flirt with me, little pup? Do you try to make me blush?" Lena felt her cheeks turn as pink as Zarya's hair. "I am Russian. I make you blush."

Lena turned her attention to Mei. "Mei, what do you like to eat?"

Mei's eyes didn't move from her screen, and she didn't reply right away. She finished her article and pushed up her glasses before turning her attention to Lena. "I like… not meat." It was not unusual for Mei to be quiet unless she was talking about science stuff, which mostly went over Lena's head. She thought a second, chewing on her bottom lip now. "I, uh, I like soups?"

Zarya came around with a cup of coffee that looked like motor oil and kissed Mei's forehead. "My kitten eats rabbit food." Mei's cheeks turned a light pink, and she looked down.

Lena regretted taking a sip of tea just before Zarya spoke. It almost came out of her nose at approximately a hundred kilometers per hour. She made a great effort to swallow her drink before laughing.

Even Angela smiled, sipping her tea, but said, "Mei deserves decent food. Lena, if you want to be the chef today to stay busy, I'll go get some money for the store."

Zarya set her cup on the counter daintily, addressing Angela. "I want something substantial, my doe."

Zarya's pet names sometimes didn't make sense, but everyone had a pet name. An animal based pet name. Maybe it was a Russian thing.

Once, Zarya called Winston "Ape," to which, Lena keenly remembered, the air nearly got sucked out of the room in terrified gasps. Everyone watched Winston carefully, who stared into the Busty Russian's eyes in a challenge. She rose to it, bringing her face closer to his.

"I make no apologies about what I am, human." His words came out hard and flat.

Lena remembered feeling the need to run as far away as possible to avoid the fight and the fallout, but instead, the two had a very long arm wrestling match, per Zarya's request. She'd gone away beaten and sulking. The next day, though, the two sat around drinking Russian made beers – Zarya affectionately calling him "ape" and Winston calling her a "mongrel."

They never said what had happened between them.

It remained one of the biggest mysteries to them all.

A clattering noise jolted her from her reverie. Hana's outraged and exasperated voice cut through the rest of the mental fog. "Oh my god, that shitty hand just cost me my streak."

Zarya giggled and ruffled Hana's hair. "It is alright, grumpy bunny. You will reign victorious in another match, I am sure."

Hana smiled up at Zarya and punched her in the arm lightly.

Lena turned her attention back to Angela, who set her cup in the sink and started walking to her room's door, just across from the kitchen. "Hey, Ang, don't worry about the money. I could use something to do in my free time."

Angela looked back with a raised eyebrow. "Would you like help?"

That was her kind way of asking if Lena needed supervision.

"Nah, love, I just want to do something nice for everyone. I'll be good. I even have some soups in mind."

Angela turned the knob on her door. "You know what day it is?"

Lena nodded solemnly.

The older woman considered the answer for a moment, and in a quiet voice, asked, "Can you get me some booze?"


	2. Spirits

Chilly air bit into Lena's cheeks, and she pulled her jacket closer around herself. Late October always felt so daunting, so cold, so distant. It'd felt that way for years now.

She'd tried to bundle up enough that she wouldn't be easily recognized, but the great big glowing contraption on her chest never made that easy. Fashion? Out of the question. She usually settled on big jackets, sweatshirts, and other clothes two sizes too big. Today wasn't an exception. Mei had tried to give her a pep talk before she left, telling her all about fashion at the poles and how she managed to stay so damn cute, but today wasn't really the day for that. Not for Lena.

October. October twenty-first. Angela had reminded her of that.

Lena sighed and dragged a hand through her greasy hair. She hadn't had it in her to shower. She probably would later. She needed to later. It'd been over thirty six hours since she last had a real bath - running in the rain didn't count.

She didn't exactly need the aviators; in fact, they were absolutely unnecessary in the overcast weather, but she liked the effect they had. No one could see her swollen, red eyes.

Grocery store. Right.

Her introspection nearly got in the way of her mission. Lena paused, correcting herself. Her task. Her... immediate need for groceries. Not everything had to be a mission, right? Being in Overwatch for so long had changed her way of thinking. Targets. Objectives. Missions. That's how Lena organized every day - a methodical approach to keep her thoughts in line. Bread wasn't a target. Grocery shopping wasn't a mission. She rounded a corner warily and almost laughed at herself. To catch a spider you must think like a spider.

She sighed. It'd been years since Lena lost her. It felt so long ago now; like something that had happened to another person entirely. And yet… And yet, it felt like barely yesterday that they'd met.

So much for fighting off the reverie.

 _"Tracer, that was amazing. I'm really glad I have someone like you on my side; otherwise, I would be terrified." Gérard laughed and patted Lena on the shoulder in a familiarly… well, dadly fashion._

 _Fatherly would have just been the wrong connotation. Gérard was too warm and kind for that particular label - "father." He was definitely more of a dad than a father. She smiled back up at him._

 _"Y'know. It's just what I do, love." She couldn't help the pride that welled in her chest, and quite frankly, she didn't want to squelch that. She loved pleasing people._

 _"Hey, why don't we make a little pit stop before we get back to filing those awful reports?"_

 _Lena blinked. "Yeah, sure!"_

 _Gérard Lacroix shrugged. "I don't have you on my team very often. We should celebrate."_

 _They walked around the city a while before stopping outside a coffee shop that Lena passed frequently on her way through the city, but had never been inside. The strong, acrid smell of freshly ground coffee beans wafted out of the open front door, and noises of chatter and gentle clanking bubbled out along with it. The shop's wide windows showcased dozens of people leaning across counters, hunched over laptops, talking to others, and laughing. There were some who sat alone reading or drawing._

 _Lena felt slightly uncomfortable going to such a public place, especially dressed in her Hey-Look-At-Me yellow bodysuit. "Gérard, I don't-"_

 _That's when it happened. All the coffee house buzz halted as eyes were all glued to the windows. Dozens of pairs of eyes bored into Gérard and Lena for half a second before explosive noises erupted - squealing women and yelling men, excited children, camera shutters. Lena hated that part of her job. Gérard just smiled and lightly nudged her, encouraging her to smile._

 _Through clenched teeth, she hissed, "Why are we here…?"_

 _He beamed back at her and put an arm around her, steering her into the café. "Coffee, of course!"_

 _The two walked in, Gérard more confident than Lena, but she put on her bravest face and ordered for the two of them with a grin. The barista blushed a lot, which was nice for Lena's ego, at least. She cracked some witty banter with the folks behind the counter while Gérard entertained the masses, but it wasn't long before she noticed a very red-faced woman in a far corner; she alone among the patrons of the coffeehouse had made no effort to storm the tide of onlookers, but had rather covered her face with a paperback French novel. She quietly slipped out the front door, and Gérard's smile to the crowd faltered._

 _"Hey, hoss, here's your shitty bean water," Lena sniffed. "Want some cream?"_

 _Gérard turned to her, weariness evident only to his teammate. "Nah, I'll take it as is. Let's blow this popsicle stand."_

 _Lena nodded and winked at the barista again before leading him out. They were barely out of the store when she turned around and snapped, her face red, "What the hell, Gérard? A publicity stunt, really?!"_

 _They rounded the corner of the block and Gérard's mouth finally opened as if he were going to speak, but another voice chimed in instead. "Chéri, if you wanted to see me during my lunch break, you could have just called."_

 _The woman who'd run out of the café. Her words came out as a small chastisement, but even then, her tone was playful and coy. Her warm, amber eyes bored a hole in Gérard as if expecting a response, which vaguely reminded Lena of a kindergarten teacher crossed with a powerful CEO of a company despite her athletic clothes. She held her head high, regally almost - confidence unwavering. Her silky black hair fell from a precariously high ponytail and fell over her shoulders._

 _Gérard's demeanor changed drastically. His guard fell completely, and Lena almost felt as if she should look away from this more intimate side of her superior. "My love," he whispered and pulled the tall woman closer. He kissed her forehead and her face, and she smiled for half a second before she started laughing, pushing him away slightly._

 _She cleared her throat and looked at Lena, who clearly felt uncomfortable. "Would you formally introduce me to your friend?" The woman's accent sounded thicker than Ziegler's._

 _"Amélie, this is Lena. Tr-"_

 _"Ah, the valiant Tracer! It's so good to finally meet you in person! I've heard such good things from Gérard, and obviously the camera loves you." Her smile felt warm, and Lena couldn't help averting her eyes, laughing._

 _"Mrs. Lacroix, it's good to finally meet you. Gérard talks about you all the time." She stuck out her hand to shake Amélie's but was pulled into a hug instead. Her stomach felt warm, and her head felt light… probably from lack of food and lowering adrenaline._

 _"No handshakes," Amélie Lacroix laughed. "And please, call me Amélie."_

Lena bumped into a gentleman on her way into the store and apologized quietly, avoiding eye contact. He grumbled about something and continued on his way.

She thought hard about why she was at the store and what exactly she wanted to get for everyone. She had more money than she knew what to do with, in all honesty. Overwatch had paid well in its prime. Lena didn't exactly have an intense need for copious material possessions; besides, she rarely stayed in one place for very long, which would have made having a lot of things very inconvenient. She lived small. In fact, she liked that better than being overrun with stuff.

Lena thought to her overflowing accounts and frowned down at the seafood section. She didn't have anything else to do that day other than brood, so she picked up two lobsters, a bunch of clams, and two pounds of crab legs to spend the rest of the day cooking. The basket she'd picked up probably wouldn't provide enough support for her haul, but she pushed forward regardless, hunting down a few steaks and vegetarian soup fixings, along with a few other leafy things. Mei liked leeks, right? She didn't need to forget Angela's booze.

 _"It's a hardy meal, don't you think?" Amélie turned to Lena and smiled brightly._

 _"It could feed an army, love." That smile made Lena's insides twist._

 _"Let's let it set up for a while. Would you like a glass of wine?"_

 _Lena nodded a little too fervently._

 _It'd been months since they'd first met outside that coffee shop, and they'd grown close over time. Those odd feelings had burrowed deep into the pit of Lena's stomach and set up camp, but she was usually good at hiding it._

 _She's Gérard's wife first and your friend second. You're better than this._

 _That didn't stop her face from feeling too warm sometimes or her heart from beating too fast when Amélie drew close. At first, Lena just thought it was the prospect of meeting someone new… forging bonds with someone outside of Overwatch. When was the last time she'd made a friend with a civilian, after all? When Lena talked with Angela about these feelings, the older woman just smiled and shook her head._

 _They'd spent the day cooking a huge meal of a seafood soup._

 _"An old family recipe," Amélie said, nodding sagely. "My mother passed it to me, and I want to share it, but I won't let Gérard even walk into the kitchen. He's terrible with flavors."_

 _Lena laughed. "You think I have good taste?"_

 _"Let's see." Amélie smirked and picked up the wooden spoon in the spoon rest. She tasted the soup and sat there a long minute before laughing. "Very good taste. It tastes just like my mother's soup, and I hope we can make this again some day. I've enjoyed this." Amélie took Lena's hands in her own and squeezed them. Lena's heart leapt into her throat and she swallowed hard. "Lena, you are my best friend. Well… No. That's not exactly right. You're the only friend I've made since I came here with Gérard._

 _I gave up… everything in France. I gave up a promising career to become a teacher. I became… domesticated." She almost spit the word. "For all of it, though, I would not trade you and Gérard for the world. You both bring me so much joy that the 'what ifs' don't bother me anymore."_

 _Lena's sweaty hands squeezed Amélie's. "You haven't made a mistake, you know. Gérard is a fantastic person, and he just wants whatever will make you happy."_

 _Amélie's eyes became watery. "Don't you see, Chérie? I am happy, and now I am certain that this was the path I'm meant to take."_

Lena felt a warm drop on her hand, still clutching the shopping basket a little too tightly. With her other hand, she wiped furiously at her eyes. The checkout clerk gave her a worried smile and asked for the basket. Lena blinked a few times and set down the basket on the conveyer, muttering a small apology. The chaser rang up a pretty penny's worth of groceries, and added on a Sprite that Lena plucked from the checkout line fridge. She left in a hurry after paying in cash.

It had started to rain while she was inside. Of course it had. It was supposed to storm later that evening, too. Everything about today had to remind her of that day.

More memories visited her as she began walking home. Memories she couldn't escape.

 _"What do you mean you don't know where she is?" Lena grabbed the front of Gérard's shirt and shook him, size difference between them be damned. "What do you mean she didn't come home last night?"_

 _"Lena, I thought she was with you!" He looked desperate. Anxious. Sleepless. "She told me she was going to surprise you with… I don't know, some kind of French pastry she made. She said she didn't want to wait and knew you were home."_

 _She had no sympathy for him in this moment. "You could have called me! Or… or texted me, even! You could have asked if she got there okay if she wasn't answering you! Gérard, we could have been on this last night if you had just talked to me!"_

 _The words had just barely left her mouth when Gérard's bright, sad eyes went dull and tearful. "I'm already blaming myself enough, Lena…"_

 _Tears fell from her own eyes, blurring her vision. Her grip tightened on his shirt, her knuckles popping as the cloth strained. She nearly screamed at him, but her voice broke after the first syllable. "Why didn't you call me…?"_

 _Deep-seated, icy-cold pain radiated from her chest, as if the chronal accelerator had not only sucked out her heart, but replaced it with a raging blizzard. Her face felt too hot - too full of passion - compared to the chill within her. She didn't know how she knew, but fear had gripped her heart and lungs, causing her to hiccup through her tears. She **knew.** Talon had abducted Amélie, and she had been missing for eighteen hours._

 _No one said the words, but at this point, it was almost completely understood. No one needed to say it out loud. If she had fallen into Talon's hands for that long, unchecked, she wouldn't come back alive._

 _Everyone in Overwatch worked day and night with minimal rest, snatching moments here and there on the couch in the break room, to both fight off mounting crime and find Amélie, but they were all stretched too thin. Every sleepless night that passed brought with it more tension amongst the once steadfast team members. Even Angela snapped at them all more than a few times._

 _Lena ran longer and faster than she ever had, burning through every contact she could scrounge up, every favor she could call in. She travelled the globe and frequented areas in Paris that had appealed to Amélie, including her most coveted ballet troupe. When Lena felt too tired to even move, she called Amélie's cell phone. She wasn't exactly sure why. Sometimes she even left a message._

 _Dial._

 _Ring._

 _Ring._

 _Ring._

 _Ring._

 _Ring._

 _"This is Amélie Lacroix. If you need me too terribly to wait, leave a message; otherwise, I'll call you back when I can."_

 _"Please leave a message at the tone or hang up and try again."_

 _Hang up._

 _The honey sweetness of her voice. The gentleness. That coy smile that she reserved for the most intense sarcasm. How the little crease on the right side of her mouth deepened when she said certain words in French. Lena fell asleep more than once, those small details dancing in her mind, only to find herself faced with cold reality upon waking._

 _After what seemed like eons, Lena had almost gave up hope of ever finding her. Then, one day in early October, she received a hysterical call._

 _"Wait, wait. Slow down." Her voice sounded tinny even to her own ears._

 _"Lena, she's **here**. In our **apartment**." Sobbing came from the other end of the line._

 _A broken husband with his wife returned._

 _Lena suddenly felt cold again. That feeling hadn't ebbed in the first place, but this felt even colder than before. Something felt… Off. What was this? Could it really be this easy? Could Amélie still...? "Can you keep her there?"_

 _"She needs Mercy. Oh my god, Lena, she needs Angela."_

 _"Is she hurt?" Her words came out in that same cold way that she felt. Mechanical. Numb. Even to her own ears, it sounded like customer service. Customer support reading off written prompts over the phone to help you fix your computer._

 _"No! I don't… Lena, she's not!"_

 _"Let me come look at her first. Let me take care of Ziegler. Stay with her." The words came out harder than she intended._

 _She hung up without waiting and pushed herself to her limits blinking across so much distance. Halfway there, she paused and shot off a text to Angela._

 ** _[8/7 16:34 ang. shes back. lacroix house. give me thirty.]_**

 ** _[8/7 16:36 Lena, I swear to God above. I will be there before you.]_**

 ** _[8/7 16:36 ang i need this]_**

 ** _[8/7 16:39 I'll be on standby at the Lacroix house. I'll give you the time you need, but after thirty minutes from now, I'm going in there and getting her out whether you like it or not.]_**

 ** _[8/7 16:39 iou]_**

 ** _[8/7 16:40 You bet your ass on it, Lena Oxton.]_**

 _After blinking across the country in what felt like only a few minutes, just walking up the stairs to the Lacroix apartment felt nearly insurmountable. Well… Maybe it wasn't just that. Maybe Lena needed to believe that her struggle was simply the effect of physical exhaustion - instead of the endless time she'd spent teetering on the edge of hysterics and constant debilitating anxiety over Amélie. Cold tightness fell upon Lena's chest like a sack of bricks as she reached the twelfth floor's platform. Her lungs filled with cotton. Her heart skipped and jumped and threw itself against her throat and made her want to scream. Her ears started ringing - wailing like the alarms at Overwatch's primary base - danger, danger, danger. Involuntarily, she leaned against the wall for support just before opening the stairwell door, slipping a little from disorientation brought on by the sudden attack._

 _Lena bent over and tried to breathe deeply until the feelings passed. Gérard had sounded so upset over the phone…_

 _Once she felt like she could stand up straight, she bit the inside of her cheek and pushed on the door to find Gérard waiting by the entrance of his apartment, biting his nails and looking around the hall. To anyone on the outside of the Overwatch family, to anyone who didn't know the poor man, he might have looked bored. His glazed eyes saw nothing for a moment as they darted to Lena in the stairwell's doorway. Recognition registered an instant later, but he made no move to approach her. Lena walked down the familiar hallway and stopped in front of Gérard._

 _Her voice apparently hadn't recovered from the surge of cold earlier. "I thought I told you to stay with her."_

 _His lower lip might have quivered for a millisecond. The love of his life had been ripped from his life and thought dead until minutes ago. "She said she wanted to be alone."_

 _Lena's voice wavered, "Should I go in?"_

 _Gérard gave a jerky, curt nod. "She might talk to you."_

 _He turned the knob of the door and let Lena into the apartment with a grim expression. Their apartment wasn't huge, but great windows on the eastern side showed a lovely view outside. Minimalist furniture with red accents decorated the area, carefully arranged to take up the least amount of visual space. The kitchen, however, boasted great marble, stainless steel appliances, and expensive hardwood. The open floor plan stopped just short of the bedroom, whose door hid behind a corner. If Amélie had been in the main room or the kitchen, Lena would have spotted her almost instantly._

 _She walked lightly on the hardwood floors as to not make too much noise, but a rug she'd encountered more than once tripped her on the way to the bedroom. The lovely bedroom. Filled with elegant touches only Amélie could have brought out in the place. Steam drifted out of the open bathroom door that led off the master suite._

 _Lena tentatively knocked on the trim of the bathroom door without looking around into the candlelit space and uttered a small, "Amélie?"_

 _Lena heard water splash and ripple but only faded to silence as if Amélie hadn't heard her. She cleared her throat and called out an infinitesimal bit louder than before._

 _"I heard you. Come in." Her voice was… different. Lena couldn't quite put her finger on the difference, though. Her accent sounded the same. Her quiet breathing sounded normal. Some undercurrent in her tone felt… off. It felt like when beautiful leaves in fall were suddenly ripped away from it's branches by gale force winds in a storm or like ice storms that covered new growth, preserving a bud temporarily before killing it with cold. Lena shivered from the nonexistent frost coating her spine._

 _"A-are you dressed?" Her words went squeaky with misplaced excitement intermingling with anxiety._

 ** _Oh my god, Lena. This is important. Get ahold of yourself._**

 _Guilt rolled in on heavy storm clouds._

 _Amélie… scoffed. A snort mixed with a joyless chuckle. "If you see something you've never seen on a person before, I give you permission to shoot it."_

 _A nervous laugh escaped Lena's mouth, nearly leading to a shriek of desperation. She wanted everything to be okay, but that wouldn't be certain if she didn't do a cursory look over for her best friend._

 _She took a breath and walked in, feeling Amélie's amber eyes tracking her even in the low light. "I can leave you alone if you want."_

 _"No."_

 _A simple no. That's all she said, yet the feeling of Lena's skin crawling to the farthest possible corner of the room felt more alive in that instance than in the chilly scoff before._

 _"H-how are you feeling?" Lena asked lamely before she swallowed and averted her eyes from Amélie's form, still a lovely silhouette shrouded in a thin cover of dissolving bubbles._

 _"I feel cold." Her answer seemed simple enough. "I can't get warm."_

 _Lena nodded. "Angela said she can come take a look at you to make sure everything is okay. It sounds like your core temperature might be low."_

 _Amélie did not immediately respond and instead drew circles in the water before turning her rapt attention back to the woman leaning against the vanity. "Do you remember when you vanished?"_

 _The cold returned. Numbness of nonexistence crept into her fingers at the memory. She flexed her hands subconsciously. "I get glimpses of memories. I do remember some kind of detached feeling…" She frowned. "It felt like I had an... emotion separate from me entirely that I could look at and turn over in whatever kind of mind I had. Sometimes it was dark and cold and empty like a vacuum. Sometimes I felt stretched as far as the oceans, but the feeling always stayed the same."_

 _"What was your emotion?" Such a pointed question._

 _Lena shrugged and shook her head. "Apathy."_

 _Amélie did not avert her intense gaze from Lena's eyes. Lena looked away first to conveniently check her watch. "Angela will be here in seven minutes to take you whether or not you like it, Amélie. I tried to talk to her…"_

 _"No, it is for the best. She needs to see me so she will leave me be. You should do the same once she has me." Her simple words all but carved a hole in Lena's heart._

 _Amélie rose from her bath unceremoniously and stepped out, still dripping wet. She hadn't bothered to drain the tub. Lena stood there and watched her dress, shocked and distraught at her frigid tone. "Amélie, I'm not leaving you. And neither is Gérard."_

 _Amélie smiled back at Lena, a thin coat of snow covering her words. "Tracer, Chérie, that's the plan."_


	3. Bronze

Lena arrived back at the safehouse and exchanged a few hellos with Zarya and Mei before excusing herself to the kitchen to cook Amélie's mother's stew. Amélie had called it a bouillababablbablese or something. Prep took the longest for it, but Lena felt something therapeutic in chopping the onions and potatoes, ripping the fennel fronds, smelling them all sautée in a pan… It reminded her of happier times before The Fall.

After she finished cleaning her fish and mollusks, she drained and pressed Mei's tofu for a better sear in the pan. Tofu dissolving in soup would only be so good in comparison to everyone else's food, so to bring out the most flavor and texture, Lena pressed it first to rid the gummy block of excess moisture.

Amélie had taught her everything she knew about cooking. Before they'd become friends, Lena had survived off the peanut butter and banana sandwiches that Winston made and restaurant food. Amélie'd also tried to teach her some kind of ballet and some ballet moves, but Lena had never been coordinated enough to match Amélie's lithe grace.

In the midst of cooking, though, tranquility got punched in the face by more painful memories. Lena staggered mid-slice. Her hands trembling, the knife clattered to the floor. Angela appeared from around the corner in a flash.

"Lena, are you hurt?" Her sharp eyes analyzed Lena's shaking body. "You should sit."

She pulled up a chair and all but shoved Lena into sitting down. Lena lightly shrugged Angela's hand off with an apologetic smile. "I'm fine, love… just got a little dizzy."

Angela's mouth twisted in a doubtful frown, but she said nothing about Lena's transparent lie. Athena blinked on, ratting Lena out. "Her blood sugar levels are incredibly low, Dr. Ziegler." Athena's kitchen monitor blinked on again in time to miss Lena send the AI a rude hand gesture - American style.

Angela rolled her eyes and glanced at the clock on the wall for the second time that day. "Have you eaten today? It's nearly three…"

Lena felt her face light up like a Christmas tree full of red bulbs. "Ah… No, I haven't eaten today."

Angela's gaze turned from concerned to sharp and analytical. Without another word, she rose from kneeling beside Lena and started making a quick meal for her - only a ham sandwich with sour cream and apple slices on the side. It was better than nothing, though Lena would have preferred some nice salty chips. Angela slid the paper plate across the island, lightly bumping Lena's forearm as it came to a stop. "I feel like this is more than just low blood sugar."

There it was. The subtle push for the real reason behind such odd behavior.

Lena picked up the sandwich, took a bite, and chewed thoughtfully for a moment before dusting her hands off, standing, and resuming chopping vegetables with a new knife. Angela now faced Lena's turned back. "Ang, do you remember a couple years ago?"

Angela snorted but her voice seemed cautious. "I remember many things, my child. To what specifically are you referring?"

Lena flung the leeks a little too firmly into the closest burner's empty pot and started chopping carrots a little less precisely than before. Her hands still trembled slightly. "Do you… remember what happened today several years ago?"

Angela let out a hard breath through her dainty nose. "Yes. It was a hard day for us all. Hence my alcohol request."

Lena nodded and chose her next words very carefully, weighing pros and cons of every syllable's delivery. "Do you still… beat yourself up about what happened?"

From her position at the kitchen counter, Lena saw Angela pull out a chair of her own and sit. Angela's heavy sigh answered her question. "Lena, child, what do you mean to ask me, really?"

The question disarmed Lena in a way that only such a mother figure could. "I've been having a very… bad time today. I keep thinking about her and… him. I keep thinking about how she used to be. I keep thinking about how different she became. I keep thinking about his blood, Angela."

Chop.

Chop chop.

Shing - into the pot.

Chop chop ch-

"Agh!" Lena dropped knife number two onto the counter and clutched her hand. Blood ran down her hand and splattered in small droplets onto the floor. "Dammit…"

Angela's chair squalled across the floor as she stood and whispered, "Lena…"

Tears again. More tears. A day of tears. Years and years of nothing but crying. Grieving. Angela pushed the sobbing, small one back into the chair she'd previously left behind in a gesture so filled with finality that Lena did not protest. In a few minutes, the blood on the floor and her finger had been erased and replaced with clean, neat stitches and a large-ish bandaid. Angela now stood at an angle with one eye on Lena and one eye on the carrots she now chopped in the wounded Lena's stead.

After the hiccups subsided, Lena's stomach started to growl for the first time that day, and she was suddenly very glad Angela fixed her a sandwich earlier. Only stifled by the occasional post-cry hiccup, she tore into it like it had been her only meal in days. Which… it kind of had been. The fatigue and anxiousness that filled her so thoroughly slightly subsided once the food hit her system. God, she'd been so hungry.

Neither of them spoke for the rest of the time Angela chopped the remaining carrots and mushrooms and slid them into the pot. She poured in the stock, sesame oil, and soy sauce, stirred once, and covered the pot with a more-or-less-fitting glass lid, turning the burner on low. Angela pulled her chair around the island to sit close to Lena and the stove and took Lena's hands.

Such warmth on the coldest day of the year.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

A twist of anxiety attacked Lena's insides, but she bit her lip and nodded. "I saw her at the funeral…"

A hint of skepticism touched Angela's otherwise concerned eyes."Did you really see her, Lena?"

The anxiety turned to pain. Did one of the only people she trusted think she was lying? "It wasn't some half-baked, grief-fueled hallucination! She told me it would happen, but I didn't know what she meant at the time. I felt… so stupid for not understanding."

Angela squeezed Lena's sweaty hands and looked down at them. "You asked me earlier if I 'beat myself up' for all this."

Lena managed a weak smile, every muscle moved taking more energy than blinking across the world. "You're the master at avoiding questions."

Angela snorted but didn't look up. "I learned from you." A pause. "I cleared her to go home. She just seemed… Dehydrated. I thought her chill might be from extended dehydration or being held in a cold facility." She shook her head. "Her heart rate seemed a little low, but I thought that her inactivity after such an athletic life as a dancer might have contributed. Lower heart rates are seen in athletes, you know?" She laughed a dry, bitter laugh. "I've taken responsibility for Gérard's murder for years."

Lena squeezed Angela's dainty fingers. To think that her hands had been bloodied from surgeries and battles alike… "If I take responsibility and you take responsibility… then who's flying the plane?"

Angela pulled away from Lena to push her hair back behind her ear and laugh. "Certainly not you anymore, my child."

Lena smiled at Angela's laugh. It felt nice to bring a smile to her face. She'd been through more than anyone. She'd had to perform the autopsy on Gérard's body, but Lena had found him lifeless, bloodied, and open-eyed in the bed he had shared with his killer. Decorated by his killer.

Angela peeked over at the stove and turned the bouillababalabalese down to a low simmer. "I counted the stab wounds. I measured the… lacerations and punctures." She rubbed a hand over her face. "Lena, she knew what she was doing."

"She didn't know what she was doing," Lena corrected sternly.

"No, maybe not at the moment." Angela pursed her lips. "She became someone else."

"But she was my friend." Lena looked back and forth from one of Angela's eyes to the other - a nervous habit. "I believe that she's still in there."

Angela averted her eyes and absently checked one of the soups. "I do not want to give you false hope, child, but Winston has confirmed a change in her attack patterns."

Lena grumbled. "Yeah, because I asked him to check to make sure I wasn't going bonkers."

"Even since the Mondatta shooting."

"Especially since the Mondatta shooting," Lena corrected. "The same pattern altered slightly and-" She omitted the near death run-in with The Widowmaker a few years later and bit her lip. " - just started…Changing."

"But even that has been so long ago," Angela reminded.

"She's not shooting to kill anymore, though." The hope in her own voice tasted almost bitter.

Angela's back curved as she propped against the counter and hung her head, eyes closed. "She might, though, Lena."

Tense silence fell between them - a quite rare occurrence given their usual closeness. Lena geared up for a rebuttal, but jumped at a loud pop from the doorway.

For the first time in her life, Hana Song came to Lena Oxton's rescue. "So when's dinner ready, scrubs?"

Angela whipped around. "Hana!"

"Sorry, mom." Hana rolled her eyes and flopped down onto the heinous maroon couch. "When's dinner ready, nerdlords?"

Angela scoffed in return and went back to busily stirring soups. "Lena, what do you think?"

"It should be ready in about twenty minutes." Lena rubbed at her neck and avoided looking Hana in the eye. Anyone could have seen she'd been crying, but she wanted to avoid prompting the question.

"Hey, Lena, don't you think you should get a shower before Winst-"

"Va-fan, Hana?" Angela's scowl matched the darkest storms. "That was a surprise!"

"Jesus, you tell me not to swear. And hey. I thought she should at least look presentable for such a big dinner. It actually smells good, but it must be because you're helping, ma." Hana looked up with wide, innocent eyes and smiled sweetly. The puppy dog stare to which Angela most certainly was not immune.

Lena looked between Hana and Angela, mouth gaping. After a moment, without a word, she blinked away to her room, snagged presentable clothes, and blinked to the bathroom to shower.

Lena always ran the water a little too hot, and even though her skin sizzled and burned with every drop, she could hardly ever get her core warm enough. The quiet hum of her chronal accelerator brought a small bit of comfort as it always did. Silence, now, was terrifying. Cloying. Threatening. Even a moment of silence could indicate a malfunction and throw her into a bajillion pieces across the universe. Sometimes she wasn't sure if all of her had come back from being flung across space-time. Numbness in any extremity brought waves of nausea and fear that she was fading again. Headaches allowed panic attacks to creep in without her noticing. The chill in her chest always felt like everything else had during her stays in oblivion. She turned the water to the left some more until steam rose off her bare skin. It hurt.

Soap ran in her eyes. That hurt, too.

"Great, now my eyes smell like strawberries."

She tried to stop herself from thinking before she remembered that strawberries were Amélie's favorite fruit. Are her favorite fruit, she corrected herself.

Her lower lip started trembling involuntarily, and her own quick fingers grabbed it. She wasn't sure what she was doing, but what she did know is that she was not going to cry again. Lena had her family to enjoy. Tonight, that would be enough.

A soft knock and an equally soft voice came from the other side of the door. It still startled her. "Lena, do you want some help with clothes?"

Mei. What a sweet person.

Lena quickly started rinsing out her hair. "Uh." She thought for another second.

"We do not have to, but I saw that you pulled out several clothes and thought I could help."

Today had been a sucky day. "Yeah, love. That'd be great. I'll pop over to your room in two shakes."

"UH." Mei's poor voice sounded as flustered as she probably looked. "My room is very messy, Lena. I will just wait until you are decent. My room is too messy for guests."

Zaryanova was there, which meant Zaryanova was in Mei's room. For some reason, Mei tried to play it off like they weren't constantly shagging, but it didn't bother Lena too much. The lady liked her privacy. Who could argue with that?

"Alright. Just a sec then, love."

Lena cut off the water and toweled off quickly, hair still dripping everywhere and dousing the flimsy green rug in front of the shower. She pulled on her undies and threw the door open. Mei covered her eyes with a plump hand. Everyone had seen Lena in some state of undress if she shared a base. Usually, she would forget pants or a shirt or some other article of clothing and blink around as fast as possible, but even with her speed, sometimes she got busted.

"C-can you put on some pants…?" Mei still looked away, shielding her eyes.

Lena shimmied herself into the jeans crumpled on the floor and tapped Mei's arm. They went into Lena's room, put on a ridiculous fashion show, and Lena found that she was still able to laugh.

* * *

Lena took point by serving soups for everyone, as per their requests. Winston had cracked into a few mangos covertly bought by Zaryanova, a rare delicacy for him, which he reserved for only the highest occasions. When he lumbered into the building, followed by Fareeha, Lena, dressed in an oversized Mei-Sweater, all but tackled him, hugging his neck and laughing. She'd given Fareeha a fistbump and a wink as Angela gave the tall woman a kiss. Lena didn't know Fareeha very well; it hadn't been all that long since they had recruited her out of Egypt. She and Angela had grown very close startlingly quickly, however, and anyone who could so quickly earn Angela's affections was a friend of Lena's.

Even Hana laid down her phone on the counter and seemed to be in a cheerful mood. She sat next to Lena, nudging her and snickering at Angela and Fareeha's loving gazes.

Mei and Aleksandra sat with their arms interlinked. Mei even spoon fed the large Russian some of the veggie soup. Aleksandra also wore a Mei-Sweater.

Mei-Sweaters had become the nickname of Mei's gifts to her teammates - high quality, hand knitted sweaters. They were warm, durable, and moderately fashionable, but the one hiccup was the chibi version of the wearer so lovingly knitted onto each and every one of them. Zarya loved them, but if Mei had given her a trash bag, she would have been just as happy. Hana enjoyed having rabbits and herself all over her sweaters. Lena and Angela both found it endearing and comfortable for home. Winston took them and wore them when Mei would be nearby, even though they "weren't his style." Even Grampa 76 had one, and he only rarely showed his face at the base.

Winston had only to shift in his seat and change his demeanor slightly for everyone to quiet their conversations and laughter, looking to him expectantly. He raised his wine glass. "Lena made us a wonderful meal tonight. This may be… No, it is but a facet of her care for us all. She does not know what she contributes to this family. I think it's time we thank her for her sacrifices." He tilted his glass toward the blushing, butterfly-belly ridden Lena. "You do what none of us would dare, and you still take the hardest day of our year to do something kind. Lena, my friend, thank you."

He drank. He drank a lot. Everyone smiled and jostled each other, murmuring thanks and following suit in beverage "sipping."

Lena covered her blazing face with a hand and sipped at her own wine. She wasn't really a fan of wine, but she'd grown to accept it for what it was. Amélie had taught her the nuances of wine tasting and enjoyment, but that had only been on very expensive, very old wine. This wine tasted… bitter. Young. She almost laughed. Like me. Woah, calm down there… what did Hana call it? Oh yeah, calm down there, edgelord.

Hana sipped at her Coke in place of wine, nudged her, and whispered, "What's everyone's deal with today? Almost everyone is acting some kind of weird, but you and Ang and Winston seemed really beat up."

Everyone else was too busy digging into Zarya's pound cake to really be concerned with their whispers. Everyone looked younger to Lena. Happier. The lines at the corners of Angela's eyes seemed more shallow… Her smile less worn. Winston laughed like he used to, before Overwatch was disbanded. Fareeha's usually solemn face softened when gazing on Angela. Mei and Zaryanova giggled. Yeah, the big Russian giggled.

Lena sighed. "We lost someone very close to us a several years ago."

"That blue bitch did the guy in right?"

A second of rage flared in Lena's core, and her instincts screamed to pin Hana on the floor and take her out the old fashioned way. She was weak and defenseless in this state without her blasters or her precious meka. Lena became aware of her grip on her wine glass tightening only as it shattered in her hand.

The cry from Hana as wine spilled on her pants created an intense hiccup in festivities, but her first words in reply weren't, What the hell, Lena? the way she would have expected. They were just a soft, "Lena, are you okay?" almost lost in the background of bustling to clean up and still-raucous laughter.

Lena came back to her senses quickly as she blinked away to get a few towels, patting Hana's legs fervently. "Yeah, yeah, I'm okay, love. God, I'm so sorry, Hana. Your pants are ruined."

Hana put a hand on Lena's forearm and stopped her. "I don't know what I said. Lena, mian."

Lena forced a smarmy grin. "Doesn't that mean 'sorry'?"

Hana scrunched up her nose and stuck out her tongue petulantly. "Hey, come with me to get new pants. Everyone here is getting a little rowdy for my taste."

Zarya let out a booming laugh at that moment and was soon muttering in Russian. She'd clearly been drinking more than just wine.

Lena cringed and nodded fervently as Angela laid across the cleaned off table and started singing, gently kissing Fareeha between verses. She'd started drinking before dinner even started. Her beautiful, bare, long leg draped over the back of a chair - her navy dress, not prepared for such a strain, ripped along the side. Maybe she'd done it on purpose like once before…

No one thought too much about the rowdy agents. It'd been a long day, and Lena was sure some Bailey's had ended up in everyone's coffees throughout the day. No one here blamed anyone else for self medicating. Not even Angela as evidence by her Swedish Seduction Tactics.

* * *

Lena and Hana made their way down the shotgun barrel hallway that connected all the rooms together. Definitely not an open floor plan. Hana's room sat across from Mei's room and adjacent to Zarya's empty room at the end of the hall. Right before their rooms, an offset room, which served as a general resting place with cots and recliners, led to a staircase going to the second attic and Angela's room. The front of the building opened immediately into the long hallway, kitchen just off to the left. On the right, the front had another staircase which lead to a larger room reserved for Athena's technology and monitors. Winston had his own nook up there. The door next to the staircase led to the bathroom. For such discrete operations, the working safehouse/base was fairly large.

When Winston had recalled Overwatch agents, the main headquarters and all of the bases that Overwatch had placed around the world were highly monitored by each country's respective governments, making sure that no unauthorized Overwatch activity cropped up. The world's governments treated former Overwatch bases like raid houses, arresting agents who went there for "suspicious activity" and "Overwatch related vigilantism." With that, the need for new bases and safehouses arose. Lena and Winston had selected a few strategic locations in some major cities across the globe for new safehouses, which were really just run down houses that they flipped and installed Athena's technology. This particular base was situated in Drachten in the Netherlands.

Hana popped open her door with a little jiggle and a shove once she turned the knob. Her door still needed fixing, like some of the others. Winston usually handled minor repairs like that, but he had his hands pretty full with the technical side of things. Fareeha and Lena usually helped with large things like tearing down and putting up sheetrock, walls, wallpaper, tile, etc. That was the only time Lena and Fareeha really got to know one another. Fareeha liked Egyptian pop music. She liked dogs a lot but preferred cats. She also liked strawberry lemonade, which Angela frequently brought to her while she toiled away at work sites. Lena suspected that it was partly because she liked seeing Fareeha sweaty in her tanktops, jeans, and work boots. That was a wonderful sight for anyone.

"Lena, I really am sorry about earlier."

Lena shook her head to clear her thinking about Fareeha's sweat-beaded, brown skin. "Hey, no, it's alright." She walked in behind Hana to see an overly hot pink room plastered in game posters. Her furniture was a delicate white to offset the hot pink rugs, hot pink futon, hot pink papasan chair, hot pink gaming chair… It was everywhere and only occasionally broken up by white or purple. Empty and half empty Mountain Dew bottles and Dorito bags littered flat surfaces and some of the floor. Empty styrofoam cups and plastic spoons overflowed in the small trash can beside the door. An unopened case of Monster sat beside her very large, shockingly neat computer table. Multiple monitors showed her logo as a screensaver. A large flatscreen sat across the room upon a case which housed several consoles being fed electricity intravenously through many tangled wires.

Hana peeled off her pants and tossed them in an overfull clothes basket. Her undies boasted cartoon animals running across her back end. She walked over to her dresser and pulled out a pair of Halo themed pajama pants.

"Do you want to, I don't know, have a sleepover?" Hana never asked about sleepovers before. She never really seemed interested in those kinds of things unless they were gaming sleepovers. Then it was just her in her room. Alone. Yelling at people over her headset. "Angela is completely wasted, and if she kisses my forehead and calls me 'child' one more time, I might scream."

Lena snorted and leaned awkwardly on the closed door. "I mean, I have some stuff that I planned on doing." She tried to seem nonchalant, but she started to worry that turning Hana down would damage their relationship.

"No, I get that. You look like you've been trying to leave all day." Another surprise from Hana Song. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"You're right full of surprises, love." Lena sighed and pinched her nose. "I'm looking for that 'blue bitch.'" She felt her voice turn a little sharp on the edges and waved herself off. "Sorry. I don't know if I should say too much about it." Hana bit her lip and flopped onto her futon, holding one of her white pillows with hot pink piping close to her stomach. Guilt creeped into Lena's heart. "Well, love, you did ask earlier what's the word, so I suppose someone should tell you."

Hana's eyes lit up as she grabbed a half empty bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and began munching, listening closely.

"My… best friend was Amélie Lacroix - Gérard Lacroix's wife. We all spent a lot of time together, even more than I spent with others at Overwatch except Winston and my usual team. Talon-"

"The bastards," interjected Hana.

Lena nodded. "Talon attempted an assassination on Gérard after he'd been tracking down the most crucial Talon hideouts, suppliers, and benefactors. Needless to say, they failed. Gérard was deemed a hero amongst us Overwatch agents for laying such a blow on them, but Talon fought back. They came at us with everything they had and ended up either absorbing most of our natural enemies or else taking them out for us, cutting off our leads back to them." Lena walked over to Hana's couch and sat across from her, one leg tucked under her. "We spent a while that way, endless tug of war between Overwatch and Talon. Then, they found a weak point. Gérard's weak point." She didn't add, And my weak point. "Talon had to have known…" For a second, she was talking more to herself than Hana. She recovered quickly. "Anyway, they kidnapped Amélie to get back at Gérard and the rest of us. Amélie had become quite the ally. She taught us dance, which actually helped a lot of agents with their precision and ability to bounce back from blows or just avoid them entirely." She noted Hana's skeptical expression and added, "It's a lot more badass than it sounds, love."

She remembered watching Amélie in her black knit catsuit bowing gracefully to her partner only to take off at a dead sprint and roll, coming up on her toes and tapping a nameless agent on the temple with a rubber gun before he could even move a few feet. Her speed was simply unmatched by most agents. She refused to fight, but she helped the fighters become more lithe - more deadly. Lena shivered. Overwatch had helped Talon do their job for them, in part.

Lena's voice sounded hollow even to her own ears. "Talon took her - kidnapped her, and brainwashed her. They... gave her back after a while." She omitted all the pain and sleeplessness they all endured during that time. Some details Hana didn't need to know. "She wasn't the same, though. She was a sleeper agent, so no one could really say anything definite. Not even Angela could find anything wrong with her, other than a little dehydration, but two weeks later…" Her throat tightened up and pinpricks jabbed at the corners of her eyes.

"Gerard…" Hana nodded quietly.

Lena's voice cracked. "Yeah…"

Something about Hana's demeanor changed slightly. "You know something's up, don't you?"

Lena shrugged, trying to play off her growing discomfort. "It seems like something's up, love."

Hana licked her crusty fingers. "Angela told me to keep you in tonight, no matter what it took, but from what you're saying," She paused. "And what you're not saying, you're going to do whatever you want to do."

Lena felt herself go a little rigid, her back straightening and her eyes narrowing. "What do you mean what I'm 'not saying'?"

Hana shrugged, smiling sweetly. "Doesn't matter. Anyway, it seems to me that you have a few options, so let's negotiate."

"Negotiate?" Lena's narrow eyes didn't get any less narrow.

"Yeah, it seems that you could use some help tracking down your girlfriend, but if you don't want the help, I can pretend to sleep while you sneak out." She held up a finger. " _Or_... I can go tattle to Angela."

Lena frowned at the term _girlfriend_. "Give me one of those disgusting crisps."

Hana offered the bag of Doritos, and Lena took one, munching thoughtfully. "It seems to me that if you tattle, Angela is just going to do what you detest, but if you don't, she might yell at you for not coming to get her."

"What about me going with you?"

Lena handed back the bag with a scrunched up face. "I think this is a mission I should do alone, but if you're determined to make a fuss to a sauced Angela, I'll clean your room and do your laundry if you keep quiet until 10 in the morning. God knows she would go out smashed and still come back with me under her arm."

Hana shrugged and unhooked her bra through her shirt, pulling the straps down over her arms and tugging it out of one sleeve, tossing it to the floor. "Suit yourself. If you need some energy drinks, I'm stocked."

Lena beamed back at the slightly disgruntled Hana. "Thanks, love. I'll have one of those awful fruit punch Five Hour Energies."

Hana winked.


	4. Butterflies and Hurricanes

Watchful eyes scanned over bustling townspeople, all of them just beginning to bundle up for the winter. They pulled their jackets closer to themselves when a gust of October wind whistled through the streets. They hustled into and out of buildings for shelter from the rising winds. A storm was approaching.

The first smatterings of rain pelted those below, but Windowmaker did not shiver. She did not move from her perch. Her eyes shifted from the slowing streams of people and glanced at her watch - 22:16 hours - before returning her gaze to the streets. Her legs should have fallen asleep from crouching for ten hours straight, but they held sturdy. Decreased blood flow could be so useful.

Talon had put her on a surveillance mission for a town in the Netherlands. New and old Overwatch agents had been tracked down to this particular city. A tendril of thought lazily drifted through her mind. _Why would they choose such a sleepy place to regain their foothold?_

She seized the thought and began analyzing it absently, clicking through mental calculations and potential target entries. If these agents started rebuilding in a quiet place, then they could amass a great deal of technology and personnel right under everyone's noses with little to no suspicion. The Widowmaker nodded to herself. That must be the only purpose.

To Widowmaker, there seemed to be two ways to go about dismantling the hideout. For one, she could give the Dutch governments an anonymous tip and let them smoke out the agents like rats. Without a stable base, she could dispose of them all easily. She planned to remove Lena Oxton - Codename: Tracer - first. Something about that foolish girl felt like an itch Widowmaker couldn't quite ever scratch. An annoyance. An inconvenience. Her heart shuddered almost gleefully at the thought of taking out that particular agent.

The other option seemed far more appealing to Talon, and she did not refute their thoughts. Talon would take out the base themselves once the site had been confirmed by Widowmaker. This would draw attention to the area and would effectively salt the earth for both Talon and the fallen Overwatch, but it had the potential to destroy several agents at once, including the ones most pivotal and influential to the Overwatch movement. Without those leaders, the remaining Overwatch agents would fall into despair and wither away, allowing Talon to further their plans.

 _And what_ _ **are**_ _their plans?_ Widowmaker pushed the thought aside. _My job is not to ask questions. My job is to watch. My job is to shoot. Questions are not a part of watching or shooting._

"Spending too much time alone brings with it too many suspicions," Her doctor had said. "It is always best to have an open communications link with other agents. If you are alone, you may think. Your job is not to think. Free thinking brings discord among agents. If you begin bringing discord, Widowmaker, we will have to _fix_ you." He had tapped a circular saw on a metal tray next to her bound arm.

At first, the thought of being " _fixed_ " terrified her, but she was no longer sure why. Time passed, and her fear faded. The doctor told nothing but truths. Just like every Talon agent, she eventually realized that "fixing" was necessary in order to maintain peace among agents and to enhance abilities for important missions. Everyone had been "fixed." Everyone in Talon would continue to _be_ "fixed" for the sake of preserving the organization. Every few missions, Widowmaker requested for the doctor to "fix" her in order to perform at her highest capabilities.

She had requested a routine tune up before this mission, so there was no reason for such intrusive thoughts to distract her from her watchpoint. But even so, there they were.

Widowmaker stood from her crouch, clicked on her communications link, and listened to grunts chattering loudly. Her squad had ditched her over an hour ago to go drinking in Groningen. They had apparently just gotten to their preferred pub. A yell from her earbud caused her to blink and rip it out.

"Moronic. _Imbeciles_ ," she swore quietly.

She felt something in the air change as a familiar hum started in the distance and quickly increased volume. Her steady heart skipped. Chilly rain pattered lightly on the gravel rooftop. Widowmaker's eyes darted to all potential entry points within a few seconds, and she touched her visor, eight strategic cameras checking all other possible routes in her immediate area; however, her movements remained slow. Her fingers wrapped around the stock of her rifle as she checked around her. A blue flash in the upper right corner. _There you are, Chérie._ In a flash, the visor lifted as Widowmaker snatched the rifle to her cheek, aimed, and took a precise shot at her 10 o' clock. A miss.

She whispered a quiet swear in French. Lucky for her, the shot made little sound because of her silencer. She'd brought it just in case.

A giggle. _That_ giggle. _That infuriating giggle_.

Down on street level, all townspeople had disappeared somewhere between when she checked her watch and now, save for three individuals, one of whom finagled around with an unbent wire hanger and a car window. Amateur car thieves or petty burglars. That electric blue blurred past the three, one disappearing, then another. Widowmaker lowered her weapon just enough to see the rest of the events unfold, but still close enough to return it to its former position if needed. The third, who fished around with his coat hanger as expertly as an infant with a spoon, backed away and looked around in panic. Widowmaker could almost _smell_ his anxious sweat. Another blur streaked across the street, knocking the third teen on his back. The familiar _plink_ announced Tracer's stop. She stood over the third teen, an obscene shoe on his chest. She said something, but Widowmaker could only hear the tone of her voice rather than her words. She seemed… cheerful. _Disgusting._

Sirens wailed, presumably coming from the station a half mile away, but the beginnings of the storm distorted some of the distance placement. The late hour would make them faster, not needing to fight traffic.

Tracer landed a well placed punch on the would-be thief's temple and blinked to an adjacent rooftop.

Widowmaker lifted her rifle, an involuntary smile spreading across her face. A preemptive celebration, perhaps, but still, to have that girl in her crosshairs gave Widowmaker a rush like no other target. Her apathy melted for a moment. Excitement and elation danced over her body and made her shiver, interrupting her line of sight for a fraction of a second. Annoyance crept in as she had to readjust her sights back on the girl.

That's when the unexpected happened. Widowmaker always tried to prepare for the unexpected, but she never planned to be _spotted_. Earlier, in a moment of irritation, she'd stood. It just occurred to her that she never crouched back down. In that fraction of a second where bliss reigned, she'd lost sight of her target. In the next second, her red tinted target caught sight of _her_.

Wide, brown eyes looked across at Widowmaker. Her target's thin pretty lips parted as her jaw unhinged slightly. She should have taken the shot then. In retrospect, she couldn't place why her finger hadn't been on the trigger. Another second passed. Tracer was gone.

Widowmaker hissed and clicked her visor down, but a tap on her shoulder made her spin around, desperately attempting to aim. The barrel of her rifle clipped the yellow spandex waif in the rib rather hard. She went skidding across the rooftop and rolled into a crouch. Siren noises warbled louder.

Instinct told her to shoot, but she held steady, the crouched figure's head clear in her crosshairs. Instinct screamed to shoot. She narrowed her eyes and spoke, "What's keeping me from shooting you right now?"

Tracer moved slightly, presumably to grab onto her blasters. Widowmaker's finger slid into the trigger housing, and Tracer hesitated.

"It must be my shining personality, love." Her snarky remarks. Something about them made Widowmaker's skin crawl. How could _anyone_ be so nonchalant when looking down a barrel? She understood how she, herself, could. She had been _engineered_ to calculate odds of survival. She had been _created_ to not feel fear.

"You aren't helping your case, chérie."

She watched Tracer's Adam's apple bob in her pale throat as she swallowed. "Want me to be honest?"

Thunder rolled. "I find that honesty is much more appealing and convenient."

Widowmaker's finger lightly touched the trigger as if to say, _Get on with it._

Lena kept her hands up, but her knees shook from being crouched too long. She regained her stability after a wobble. Smug satisfaction touched at the corners of Widowmaker's awareness.

"You aren't shooting me because you don't _want_ to shoot me." Her eyes were steady through those hideous orange goggles.

The words struck her like a large hammer on a church bell. She lowered the rifle slightly and stared down at her. She felt a snarl rise in her chest and rip through her bared teeth. "It is my _job_ to shoot you, naive child. It does not matter what I _want_."

Tracer's eyes flicked between Widowmaker's right and left eye. Fear. The look of a fawn staring at a rabid coyote. A mouse staring up at a rather large, rather hungry cat. Something in her eyes tempered the fear, though. Widowmaker could not place that other look in her eyes. A tug of familiarity pulled at her chest. She tore her eyes away and slung her weapon behind her back.

"It might be your job, love, but I'm still here." Her voice competed with the steadily increasing rain volume.

Widowmaker returned Tracer's challenging stare, allowing the girl to stand. "You are not my target, chérie, or you would have been dead before you knew I was here."

Widowmaker backed to the edge of the building, eyes never leaving Tracer's shivering form. The rain soaked into her spandex, darkening the yellows and oranges and making the wool around her neck invariably smell like wet dog. She let herself fall. In that instant, she saw the soaked girl's face go slack and fill with terror once more. Widowmaker crashed through a window two stories down, thanks to her strategically placed grappling hook twined around her ankle.

She ran. She ran not out of panic. Not out of fear. Widowmaker ran to draw Tracer out and away from the objective.

Conveniently, the building's occupants were all business people who toiled away in inanity. No lights were on, but Talon's enhancements and her visor allowed decent enough night vision to avoid colliding into anything within the office building. She popped the fire alarm on her way out a back door, handle and lock broken by a well placed blow with her rifle's stock. The wailing quickly receded behind her as she ran. If she was lucky, Tracer would stop and try to aid in the evacuation. She was so easy to predict at times; always going for the Good Deed. But if she wasn't…

Widowmaker's elation and pleasure faded into the background until it died completely. Running brought her back to her senses. The farther she got away from that particular agent, the better. In moments, a forest sprawled out before her, and she made her way for the shadowed trees. Her mission could still be a success - _if_ she could shake her tail. Tracer might even lead her back to the rat's nest and let her take everyone out, saving Talon a headache and requiring minimal cleanup.

Her thoughts wandered as she sprinted through sparse woods to the countryside. No hiding place for either of them would be optimal, but at this point, blowing her cover to the rest of the Overwatch cluster would prove a much more difficult blow to the mission. She needed to lay low until Tracer went elsewhere.

A powerful force shoved against Widowmaker's back and drove her into the muddying ground face first. Instinctively, she rolled and grabbed at the thing that had hit her. She snarled like an angry cat and ground her teeth, grappling the yellow spandex-clad form into the ground, one of her arms twisted behind her, one of her legs trapped between Widowmaker's thighs, grinding her face into the muck. Tracer's quick breaths pushed against Widowmaker's chest, mud and leaves smearing into Tracer's back and chronal accelerator. Idly, she wondered whether the device was waterproof. That would certainly be an amusing way to dispatch of her, with her life-support system drowned in mud.

Widowmaker pulled up on the arm she grasped tightly, eliciting a sharp cry from the girl pinned below. She leaned down and hissed in Tracer's ear.

"What did you plan to do when you caught me?"

A gasp of pain followed a breathless laugh. "Hadn't really thought this through, honestly. Always… thought I'd make it up… as I went."

Widowmaker went still and leaned back, letting go of Tracer's arm. She snatched her arm back and panted, face lying on her side to avoid inhaling thickening mud. Suspicion danced at the back of Widowmaker's mind, but something in Tracer's tone indicated solemn truth. This wasn't their first dance, and Tracer had never seemed to be the type with a grand plan.

Lightning crashed nearby and a buzz echoed in Widowmaker's spine. She made no effort to move from her seat on Tracer's back. "I'll make a deal with you."

Tracer did not actively move, but her breathing increased from excitement or some other related, intense emotion.

"Why are you in Drachten?"

Silence only interrupted by the sounds of a whipping storm. Tracer shivered in the chill that Widowmaker did not feel. Cold were her chambers at Talon. Cold was the blood in her veins. Tracer was too bright - too warm - to be comfortable in these conditions. Dirt chafed her exposed skin.

"I need somewhere to go…" Her voice was small. A half truth. Widowmaker twisted the leg still trapped between her own.

"What aren't you telling me?"

Tracer cried out, and Widowmaker's heart skipped again. _Entangled in a spider's web._ The elation at a kill. Except...

"Ah… we're… ah…" Another shiver of joy. "We just need somewhere to…" She grunted. "Somewhere to. Go. Place to… live. Keep down petty crime…" Tears fell from Tracer's scrunched eyes and splattered on the inside of her visor. "We need a home."

Some nostalgic pang seared through Widowmaker's chest momentarily. For what, she did not know. A home? No. She had Talon. They provided her consistent shelter and sustenance.

Widowmaker untangled herself from Tracer's form and loomed over the girl, aggressively rolling her over with one booted foot. Tracer groaned. Her hip had been dislocated. Widowmaker intentionally placed a firm kick on that leg before pulling around her muddied rifle. A quick shot would end it.

Still. That unidentifiable longing clouded the usual rush at pinning prey so easily. She fired a round into Tracer's already wounded left leg. No bone breakage. No arteries hit. No lasting damage. Just a warning shot. Blood splattered, but not enough to be lethal. Seeing it was… a rush.

"Stay away from me, _Tracer_. This is your final warning."

Through her cries of pain, the gasped a whispered word. " _Amélie…_ "

Widowmaker turned back, a shockingly uncomfortably lance of... _something_ shooting through her skull like a bullet. Pinpricks of nausea settled in her stomach. The name sounded familiar. It… _echoed_. In her head. Who…

Her mouth ran before her conscious mind could stop her. "Who the hell is _Amélie_?"

 _It is not my job to ask questions. My job is to watch. My job is to sh-_ Another fiery lance pierced her skull. With every echo, every reverberation of the name, her discomfort doubled again. Minutes passed.

She looked down at the woman laying on her side, keeping the wound from getting too dirty. Tracer's eyes were wide and unseeing. Her body shivered and convulsed. The rain alone could have made her lips turn blue, but the chill was not the cause. The wound on her leg shouldn't have put her into shock unless… Unless she was anemic.

Rain poured. Lightning charged the air. Thunder provided the storm's rising heartbeat.

Widowmaker had to make her own call on this one. If she let Tracer die in the muck, she would be rid of one headache. On the other hand, her mission this time had been to observe only. Her personal investment and curiosity had lead to this incident. She considered her options quickly and pulled the small pack she carried on her back around. Widowmaker drew out a waterproof, heat shielding tarp and wrapped it around the shivering woman. Widowmaker also pulled out a small dish towel, rolled it up, and tucked it under Tracer's head.

She got down on her hands and knees, quietly murmuring, "You're not my target today, chérie. Where's your base?"

 _It is not my job to ask questions._

Tracer shifted her too-dilated eyes to Widowmaker's face and said nothing.

" _Idiotic_ _ **child**_ , how far away is your _base_?"

 _It is my job to watch._

"No." Tracer's breathy yet firm answer.

"I need to know if you're going to _die_ before someone can help you. I won't stay."

 _It is my job to shoot._

"Few miles, I think." Tracer's words trailed off.

She took the earbud out of Tracer's ear and put it in her own. "Whoever is listening, your _friend_ -" She spit the word. "has been shot. She's in shock. Come get her."

Widowmaker rattled off the coordinates displayed on her own cuff, vaguely noting that three messages had been left for her. She stood and gazed down at Tracer again. Another alien emotion touched her chest. She didn't know what it was. She didn't enjoy it.

Widowmaker did not feel the cold. The rain did not bother her as it rolled off her visor's glass bubbles. The pelting rain did not perturb her. A stirring tightness in her chest encouraged her legs to become… springy - rubbery, ready to flee.

So she ran. She ran back to her nest to try to catch sight of the direction from which Overwatch agents would flow, but more so than that, she ran away from Tracer. She ran away from the object of her distraction. She ran from the impossible feelings that were... _awakening_ from their long slumber within her.

"Hang in there, Lena." She felt herself mutter. One of the feelings dawned on her… Concern. Not concern for a mission or an outcome - she was experiencing _concern_ for the trembling, muddy girl she'd left behind. But _why_?

 _Questions are not a part of watching or shooting._

She arrived back at her watch point in a matter of minutes and settled back down, her legs still feeling tingly from her emotional rush - her fight _and_ flight response. Her communications link had been screaming feedback in protest of all the bouncing from her flight. A different form of concern pinched her heart - fear. She hadn't turned the device off in her pursuits.

Fear felt most foreign to her. Emotions threw her into a nauseating ocean, drowning her in introspection and analysis. Fear became the tendrils of seaweed wrapped around her ankles that pulled her head further under the tumultuous waters. Every breath passing through her mouth brought sharp pains to her lungs. Every breath through her nostrils worsened the nausea. Her body swayed as she crouched and tried to focus on the shadows cast by street lights.

In her agitation, she checked her cuff for the time. 03:47. Six minutes had passed since she left Tracer. With any luck, Angela Ziegler - Codename: Mercy, would be there within the next few minutes to patch her up on site or transport her to a proper location. Widowmaker chided herself. _There is no such thing as luck, only precisely calculated odds._

She placed her earbud back in her left ear. Insistent blinking lit up her cuff, and she double tapped it hesitantly, remembering the three messages she had ignored already. _Pling_ \- the accepted call noise. The voice that growled from her earbud sent shivers down her spine. Fear bathed her in its ghastly light as he spoke. "Agent Widowmaker, I'm recalling you back to Talon's main base."

She steadied her voice, tempering it with hardened resolve. "The mission is not yet finished."

" _You_ compromised our mission." The terse words clawed at her insides.

She nodded despite the disembodied voice being unable to see her. "And what of my team members?"

"I'm losing patience with you, Widowmaker. Your job is not to ask _questions._ They abandoned their objective, but they are disposable. You are not. I will dispose of them myself. As for you, get back to the base, and go immediately to the medical ward."

The silence following those words ripped out whatever platform her rebellion stood upon. She fell back in line. She had no choice. She remained silent a moment before reholstering her weapon. "Oui."

The universal call ending - c _lick_.

Her other emotions subdued and forced into submission, she relished in the thrill fear sparked within her. Displeasure at such a tangible emotion seemed almost as satisfying as pleasure at the height of a kill - the spark within her that faded within seconds, except this spark caught into a blaze. Consistent fear, while driving her body to overexert itself in a pathetic attempt to preserve her, made her swifter, more agile, more reckless. Calculations be damned.

She sprinted to the extraction point. Upon her arrival, half a dozen black-clad agents approached Widowmaker and, more or less, forcefully encouraged her to take a seat in a threatening-looking wheelchair, equipped with straps and tranquilizers. Never once had Talon provided such countermeasures against her.

Fear.

Unwavering fear.

Her heart pounded in her ears, and an uncomfortable lump in her throat would not be swallowed.

Once strapped in the chair and wheeled into the aircraft, soldiers stabilized the chair with more straps. Claustrophobia settled on Widowmaker like a wet, wool blanket and filled her lungs with cotton swabs. Was this how it felt to be the fly, trapped within a web? A subtle pinprick on her neck gave way almost instantly to the sensation of falling.

Falling out of control.

Falling out of favor.

Falling out of her calculated understandings.

Falling asleep.

Widowmaker first noticed an earthy flavor in her mouth when she woke. Something was in her mouth - between her upper and lower teeth. She dared not to open her eyes. She _feared_ what she might see. Beeping she had only vaguely noticed before increased in frequency. A heart rate monitor. She cracked an eye open when she heard someone rise from a chair.

Her hair fell over her shoulders, free from its usual neat ponytail. A familiar set of fingers raked through it, twirling the strand a bit on the end. Her skin wanted to pull her hair follicles away so that the large man could not touch her. He seemed to notice Widowmaker's discomfort and grabbed a handful of hair, snatching her back to the headrest. A metal bar clicked across her forehead.

The heart rate monitor beeped faster than Widowmaker could remember it ever doing before. Surely it couldn't be connected to her own chest, but the nodes on her hands, neck, chest, and back were there. Her naked body quivered against the chair to which she was tethered. Metal cuffs restrained her wrists and ankles.

The grogginess from the tranquilizer wore off suddenly, and she tried to speak around the leather strap in her mouth. Realization dawned on her quickly. She hadn't been in this chair in a very long time.

"Where is the doctor?" She attempted to say, but it sounded more like, "Wrrth th drrtrrr?"

The man walked back around and pulled down his suit sleeves, preparing to sit in the comfortable looking leather chair in the corner. _He_ had always seen to her treatments in the past. But never alone. Never without her doctor.

 _Fear._

"Your former doctor has been removed. I did that personally." His voice, which sounded so rough over the communications line, slipped across her flesh like silk, but it was not a comforting feeling. His words felt like harsh finality coiling around her throat. The monitor's beeping increased again. 60 BPM. "The doctor seemed to have… ulterior motives. He'd grown fond of you. His personal interest got in the way of his _job_ , and that's why he had to be _removed_. Now, we're going to make sure that this incident never happens again, understood?"

Widowmaker did not even draw a breath before lightning struck her heart and burning metal scraped at her throat as she screamed.

But, God, this time. This time she felt the _pain_.


	5. Light That Match

Hana had been the one to receive Widowmaker's call. The cold, unfamiliar voice whispered over the line she kept a close ear on, startling her out of her complacency. She tried to give confirmation, but the line had gone dead before her tongue could turn back from stone.

" _Your friend has been shot."_

The worst possible call Hana could have received other than confirmation of Lena's death. Dammit, Angela had given her a simple _task_ , and she couldn't even do that. Hours seemed to pass before she could even register the words that were hissed over the line. Several seconds wasted that could mean the difference between life and death for Lena, but the Korean army hadn't picked up Hana " " Song for no reason.

She launched herself from her happily nestled position on the couch where she and Lena had had their talk hours earlier and threw her 3DS down on the couch. Everyone had been drinking that evening, and the alcohol either hadn't worn off yet or else everyone was slightly or completely hungover. The gears in her mind whirred faster than they did in even the most immersive games - this was her battle mindset.

She thought about waking Winston first, since his genetic engineering prevented him from getting anything other than relaxed and jokey when exposed to any quantity of alcohol. She thought about going to get Zarya almost in the same instant, but she marked that option off quicker than Winston. The only reasonable option was to wake Angela, but even she would be less than optimal, considering how much she'd had. Hana couldn't rightly go out in her bright pink meka and save the day; being noticed was at the top of the problems list on that front.

She sprinted down the hall and banged on Angela's door. No one answered. She beat on it again and again, hearing Winston's hammock creak overhead in the attic space after the first several slams.

" _Fuck_ privacy," she hissed to herself. "She's _dying._ " She slammed against the locked door. Hana threw her entire tiny body against the door. A thunderous crack rang out through the nearly silent downstairs. A second tackle against the door splintered the fake wooden door. She burst through in a shower of splinters, yelling halfway in pain, halfway in growing panic.

She'd only been moderately trained for these types of situations, but to her, this was different than combat was. Her most immersive experiences felt far away in the seat of her meka, surrounded by hardened glass and metal. When she detonated it in the thick of battle, brought on my utmost necessity, her exposure to enemy gunfire felt exhilarating. As she burst through the door, her heart feeling close to beating out of her chest, and now standing in Angela's room in her pajamas, she felt very small and very afraid.

Angela sat up from her bed, eyes barely open. Fareeha fell out of bed, stark naked and tangled in Angela's sheets, all four of her robotic prosthetics gleaming in the foyer's light.

"Va-fan, Hana? Do you know what time it is?" Angela pinched the bridge of her nose, and Hana started to freeze again.

 _No, I am_ _ **better**_ _than freezing up when Lena_ _ **needs**_ _me. I will not_ _ **lose**_ **.**

"Get the _fuck_ out of bed, and get some clothes on. Lena's been shot," she barked and threw clothes on the floor to both Angela and Fareeha. Angela didn't respond fast enough to suit Hana. "Angela, _move_." Her voice was hard and final.

Angela started moving slightly slower than usual, pulling on her shirt and underwear, snatching on pants. Fareeha was somehow already dressed and standing, helping a wobbly Angela to her feet.

"What happened, child?" Her words came out cold and condescending.

Hana's insides twisted. The term of endearment, this time, was an insult. "She… She took off." She swallowed. "I tried to keep her, but she left anyway. A-after I fell asleep." The lie didn't come easily to her lips.

Angela snatched the wings off the top of her armoire and plucked her caduceus from the doorway like it was simply an umbrella. Her eyes flared with a passionate anger that Hana had never thought would be directed at her. "You incapable _child_." The words stabbed like a frozen knife into Hana's heart, but she stood there, no tear in her eye. She deserved this. "You _let_ her get _away_. I gave you one _goddamn job_ , and you couldn't even do _that_." Fareeha placed a firm hand on Angela's arm and shook her head once. The big Egyptian didn't need to talk to express her thoughts. "No, Fareeha, she needs to know that _This. Is. Her. Fault._ She is _one of us_ , and we need to be able to _trust her._ "

Hana stood frozen in the doorway as Angela brushed by, smelling like old alcohol, faded perfume, and sex. Fareeha followed her, already mostly suited up, and placed a robotic hand on Hana's shoulder, looking down at her with a soft, sad smile. "She doesn't mean it, Hana. Angela… Is not doing well at all. Which does not excuse her behavior, mind you, but you _must_ understand that she views you and Lena both as her own daughters. If I know anything about her," Fareeha smiled, the udjat tattoo under her eye creased with the expression, "and I like to think I do, she feels just as responsible as you for what's happening right now. If I know her, she's already beating herself up for snapping at you. She's… hung over in more ways than one, I think you would say. Her emotional turmoil - " She shook her head, metal beads clacking. "And the alcohol made a very bad combination. I will speak with her about what happened."

Tears began welling up in Hana's eyes, and she turned from the large woman but squeezed the cool, smooth hand on her shoulder in silent thanks. Fareeha kissed Hana's hair before she left the room, smelling much like Angela had. "One more thing, habibty," _My darling_. "We will bring her home. You are not at fault."

Hana didn't say anything and went to her room, suited up, and started going toward the garage where her meka stayed. A firm, iron grip grasped Hana's shoulder, and she looked up nervously, already knowing she would look up into Angela's blue eyes. They were usually so comforting, so tranquil, but now they were icy and tumultuous like the Bering Sea. Hana had been there once for a covert operation for the Korean government; though she was never sure how a giant pink robot was considered _covert._ "You're staying here. You've done enough. Help Winston."

Zarya, Mei, and Fareeha gathered around the door. The big Russian and Mei, both of whom still stood in their pajamas, boasted their weapons. They must have been protection in case of more Talon agents or in case of an ambush. Zarya's drawstring pants were on backwards. In another few seconds, they hustled out with only a few yawns. Fareeha looked back again at Hana with an apologetic smile.

When the door swung mostly closed, Hana's knees went weak and she fell onto the tile. Something gnawed at her insides, making her feel empty - hollow. She was afraid. A ripping, strangled sound met her ears, and after a second, she realized it was her own sobbing. She was only vaguely aware of Winston behind her. He nudged her uncertainly, like she was some foreign thing. For such a kind, empathetic friend, he was not your go-to guy for tears.

"Hana… You are not at fault. Fareeha briefed me on the situation."

She grabbed onto his large, hairy arm and cried. She didn't want anyone to see her cry. Crying was not generally something done by a world prized gamer and military operative. She felt… weak. She felt vulnerable. She felt like someone had found her weakness and exploited her. The walls she kept up around almost everyone started building themselves at the very _thought_ of Angela Ziegler, but down in her heart, the sinking feeling took hold. Angela had been right. Those walls crumbled as soon as they were built, but her mind did not stop trying to protect itself.

This was all her fault, and now one of her only friends might die because she was too _incompetent_ to do one simple task.

She barely noticed when Winston plucked her up and cradled her as if she were a small, tired infant. In that moment, she felt too young to be doing this. She felt a crack forming in her confidence but tried to suppress the thought. "Hana," Winston pushed up his glasses and looked into her eyes. She tried to look away, but his gentle hand stroked her hair lightly. Her sobs quieted significantly, but her nose still ran like some pathetic five year old who'd scraped their knee. "Go get out of your suit. They should be back soon. Get back into your pajamas, and come help me set up Athena to monitor Lena. It's going to be a long night."

He sat her back down, and she wiped angrily at her face. "Winston, I _let_ her go alone…"

He shook his head with a chuckle. It almost felt like he was mocking her, and a pang seared through her heart. "Hana, no one believes that but you, and I know it." He looked over his glasses. "No matter what anyone tells you, Lena Oxton made her choice, and now, we're going to help her. We should just be thankful that Widowmaker didn't make the shot lethal."

"H-how do you know?" Her post-sobbing hiccups annoyed even her.

Winston pulled himself up on the spiral staircase leading to Athena's control room. "I have a lovely, well-informed lady on my side."

An hour or so later, Fareeha busted in through the still slightly open front door holding _her_. Angela was yelling, close at her heels. Winston lurched and lumbered, cleaning off the kitchen's island in one swoop.

Hana stood in the opening of the kitchen, trembling and watching as Fareeha gently laid down a semi-conscious Lena. Angela barked a few words at Hana that she couldn't readily understand. She felt too far from her body.

Angela's red eyes filled with tears again and her distant words finally reached Hana's ears as she spoke with Winston. "She's mostly stable. I did some on site healing, but we need to get that bullet out. She's lost a lot of blood, and with her anemia..."

Winston nodded and lied through his big, sciency teeth. "Hana and I set Athena up to monitor Lena." It had just been Winston. Hana spent the time coping with intermittent sobs and trying to steel her nerves.

Angela's desperate eyes turned back to Hana, who still felt frozen in place. She'd seen her friends wounded, but this felt too close to home. "Hana, please."

Her reply sounded completely certain and unwavering. "What do you need me to do?"

She felt the pieces fall into place. Now, Hana Song became . Her eyes flicked from Angela to Winston and walked into the kitchen, pulling her hair into a tight bun and washing her hands up to her elbows. Angela touched Hana's arm lightly, softly, as if in apology or askance. Angela's hands were trembling. "My hands aren't steady enough to extract the bullet or place the IV for transfusion."

Hana's eyes met Angela's and did not flick away. "You realize you're asking me to operate on my sister."

Angela covered her mouth, squeezed her eyes shut, and took a shaky breath. "You're the only one who can. We're all…"

Hana's clipped words matched her neutral expression. "You all drank too much, and Winston's hands are too big, yes. I understand. Now, give me what I need and guide me through this."

Angela breathed down Hana's neck for the next hour and a half. Angela administered the topical anesthetic and began the walkthrough. watched plenty of walkthroughs to see how others did things - to gain an edge in her workings. She'd even made a couple of her own from time to time. Following instructions posed no problem. Emotions, however, presented the biggest obstacle. Extracting the bullet and bullet fragments took longer than it should have because Hana had to sit back, close her eyes, and shove her emotions down. This was just one hell of a game of Operation.

When she played games, she complained and yelled at the screen, mainly for the audience but sometimes to blow off steam. This time, she just said, "What now?"

Mei went to the spare freezer in the second attic and brought out a bag of blood corresponding with Lena's blood type - possibly even her own blood. Her fingers felt stiff after an hour, so Angela guided her through the transfusion process before allowing her to return to extracting approximately ten million shards of bullet.

Hana dropped the bullet shards into a glass cup on the counter. _Plink. Plink. Plink._

Eons passed as the meaty gurgle echoed in the room, silent except for Lena's heart monitor (thanks, Athena) and muted, anxious breathing. Every movement dawned a new age. Hana's eyes, accustomed to lack of blinking at her screen, grew weary from the anxiousness growing within her. Her hands began to tremble pulling the eleventh piece of brass casing from Lena's leg. Angela's words from earlier echoed loudly in her mind, but that _plink_ into the glass cup drowned out the resentment growing in her chest and the ravenous tumult of her thoughts.

Athena's voice almost gave Hana a heart attack. "That was the last piece of shrapnel. Lena remains stable."

Everyone let out a collective, relieved sigh.

Drops fell on Lena's exposed leg. Hana began crying again, but this time, Angela caught her and held her close. Hana thought that maybe, through her fearful haze, Angela might be crying too.

Hana stared down at the cup in front of her, avoiding Angela's eyes. Fareeha catnapped in the general sleeping area while Winston, Mei, and Zarya went to bed. Angela assured them all that they were a great help keeping lookout and needed rest. They didn't protest much, but Zarya _did_ pat Mei's butt on the way out. Hana wasn't exactly sure they would be "resting," but she also didn't want to know whether or not she was right.

Angela had made Hana a cup of hot chocolate in her special way, but the lump in Hana's throat had returned after Athena gave the "all clear" on Lena. She felt… shaky. Her hands remained steady as they had been while extracting the bullet, but her insides felt quivery like lunchroom jello. She wrapped her hands around the still slightly warm cup and avoided Angela's eyes.

"Hana…" Angela began.

Hana put up a hand to stop her. She still didn't drink from her cup. Usually, she would have guzzled it while it was still too hot, but this time, she didn't want to accept Angela's gift. Fear whispered in her mind to protect herself.

Angela bit her lip, looking over at Lena, who lay on the island where they'd operated on her, with a blanket and a pillow. Fareeha had offered to watch her in the general sleeping room, but Angela insisted on keeping Lena in the kitchen where they didn't have to move her. Lena still needed sutures and stitches, but Angela knew that was beyond Hana's skill level and wouldn't ask that of her.

The older woman bit her lip and looked down at her own half empty teacup. "Hana, I'm sorry…"

Hana didn't speak, but she did make herself take a sip of the hot chocolate in a weird olive branch gesture. It felt as silky and flavorful as the best, even if it had started to get cold. The Swiss knew how to whip up the most divine chocolate.

"I shouldn't have said those things to you. I don't even know why I said them." She shook her head. "That doesn't make me saying those… horrible, horrible things okay. You're like a daughter to me, and I would never want to intentionally hurt you."

Hana sat her cup down a little too hard and kept her eyes locked on the swirling chocolate foam. "I think you believed it when you said it, and you were right." Her voice barely reached a whisper. If she were any louder, tears might fall again.

"Fear," Angela began, almost as soft as Hana had spoken. "Fear makes people do things that they never thought they would do. It drives people to say terrible things to the ones they love. It drives people to make rash and abnormal decisions." She blinked rapidly and took a sip from her cup. Her tea had to have been cold, too. "When you told me... " She paused and swallowed again, as if she'd taken another drink. "When you told me, I was certain that she was gone. I was… expecting to find the body of another child, claimed by war and conflict. I expected to see twenty three stabs to her chest. I expected to see Gérard. I was very, very afraid. I lashed out, and yes, in the moment, maybe I believed it, but I was _wrong_ to take out my fear on you, Hana. You're a part of our team, and I shouldn't treat you like a child, no matter how much I want to."

A tear tickled Hana's nose as it rolled from her eye and dropped into her lukewarm hot chocolate.

"If you were an incompentent child," Angela made a face as if the words tasted bitter. "You could not have pulled those shards out of Lena's leg. You could not have remained calm. If you were irresponsible, you would have been as impaired as the rest of us. If you couldn't be trusted, I would never have asked you in the first place."

The chilly well in Hana's chest suddenly caught flame, her heart blazing and her eyes sharp. "Then why did you _say those things, Angela._ I _trusted_ you. You were the only one here who I felt like understood _anything_ about me. I didn't even _try_ to stop her. I told her what you asked me to do, and she was going to leave anyway. I didn't even _try_ , Angela. You're right about everything, and deep down you know just as much as I do that I'm just a stupid kid who's in way too far over their head." She sniffled but let her tears fall. She was tired of trying to hold everything in. She was tired of holding in her fear. Her anxiety. Her doubts. She felt like she was carrying a huge load on her back and that her legs would snap underneath her, letting that load squash her flat and break her.

How long had it been since she'd _cried_ like this? Not in the Korean army, even when she'd felt so lonely and far away from people who truly cared about her. Not when she'd been , gaming superstar, even when her fans could be cruel and her family refused to understand.

No… The last time was when she'd been just plain old Hana Song, a fifteen year old girl participating for the first time in one of the most prestigious tournaments in the video gaming world, sobbing in her hotel room the night before the finals. Long before she'd known who she was. Who she _would_ be. Before she'd known that she could do _anything._

But could she?

Angela came around the counter and wrapped her arms around the crying girl once more. "Hana, I'm sorry…" She sniffled, too. The unflappable Dr. Ziegler cried there, holding her adoptive daughter. "Hana, I broke your trust, and I'm sorry." She muttered apologies and eventually crossed the language barrier, muttering in her native tongue. Hana wrapped her arms around Angela almost in an attempt to keep her there - to keep Angela from leaving her again. Angela squeezed tighter in affirmation. "You don't have to forgive me. What I said was unforgivable. Just know that I'm sorry."

Hana shook her head, which rested against Angela's stomach. "You can be so _stupid_ sometimes."

Angela laughed through a sob and nodded, unable to speak.

She wanted to forgive Angela, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Resentment still gnawed at her insides too hard for a true acceptance. Until then, this would have to do.


	6. What You Know

_I'm sure most of you have heard, but last night something terrible happened in France. This chapter was written in its entirety a full month ago, and the events within are not in any way related to the tragedy nor the suffering of those affected. I debated heavily on posting today for that reason, but in the end, I don't feel like this tragedy will be any less raw in a week or a few days than it is today. My heart goes out to everyone affected._

 _That said, while the events depicted in this chapter are not necessarily graphic, this is a definite TRIGGER WARNING for a large attack on a large group of people followed by pain and suffering and fallout. I thought about trying to remove this chapter entirely, but the event in question is central to how the rest of the story plays out. To remove references to it would mean reworking the plot entirely and nearly ten future chapters' worth the material. This is the worst possible timing for this chapter to come out, in all honesty. If you don't feel like you can handle reading about this kind of thing (especially with being inundated with similar content irl), please put yourselves first, and take time to heal before reading this chapter. I love entertaining people with my writing, but self care is more important than any amount of hits, kudos, or comments. Please take care of yourselves, friends._

 _Much love,  
Sid _

Cold marble and a creaky neck greeted Lena when she surfaced from her groggy sleep. Something held her head under the cover of unconsciousness, and she began to struggle, panic building in her chest. Part of her mind went to past experience - the dizzying feeling of being pushed under dark, unforgiving negative space, stretching her into oblivion. She wanted to move but invisible tendrils held her fast. She struggled again, and this time all the bonds broke free, sending her flying into consciousness. Sharp, burning pain seared through her leg, and she almost screamed.

Lena pushed herself up, panic mounting, and realized she was laying on the kitchen's island. Dim memories surfaced of Fareeha looming over her shivering body. Things started falling back into place as her memories started rushing back in to fill the drug induced gaps.

 _Widowmaker..._

Athena's voice came from the next room over, and squeaks signaled someone rising from the big leather recliner crammed in one of the corners. Hana came around the corner, socks sliding on the tile a little before she steadied herself with the door's trim. She looked past Lena, and Lena followed Hana's gaze to the sleeping Angela, her face squished on her forearm as she dozed on the kitchen counter closest to the stove. Hana bit her lip, and Lena noted a look she couldn't discern. Hana padded over to Angela and shook her arm lightly.

Angela jumped and pulled her face away from her arm, a thin string of drool connecting the corner of her mouth to her forearm. She wiped it away with a mildly disgusted look on her face. "Lena, how are you feeling?"

Lena chose her words carefully. After all, she'd been shot, but she didn't want to really let Angela in on how genuinely terrible she felt. It might make Angela's vigilant watch even more vigilant. "Ah, I'm alright. My mouth feels a bit like someone decided to make it a desert. I could use some water before some country decides there might be an oil field under it."

Hana snorted and went for a glass, but Angela loomed over Lena's injured leg, poking and prodding. Angela looked like hell, but for that matter, Lena suspected that everyone must have looked at least a _little_ off their game. Another searing pain ripped through Lena's thigh, causing her to inadvertently swat Angela's hand away. Angela sent her the most stern look, which sent Lena back into being five years old, picking at a bandaid that covered a scraped knee with her mother looking down at her in silent reprimand.

Hana handed her a glass with a quiet smile. No snarky comment. What had gotten into her…?

"Lena, I need you to tell me exactly what happened."

So, she did.

Angela sat and sipped at the tea that she'd made during Lena's explanation, but her eyes were as impassive as a frozen lake. She gave no inclination that she was happy Lena sat before her but no inclination that she _wasn't_ happy. She did not respond to Lena's report. She just sat and drank her tea.

The jitters settled into Lena's stomach, Hana's game, though quiet, beginning to eat at her nerves. Everything started to close in on her in the absence of Angela's reaction. She wanted some kind of response - craved a response. She couldn't bear the quiet stare.

Angela finally set her cup on the counter and looked away. "Lena, I cannot _believe_ you set Hana up like that."

Lena's heart sank. "I didn't mean…"

Hana huffed quietly and went to the fridge, using the door as a shield between Angela and herself and muttering in Korean.

" _What about me going with you?"_

 _Lena handed back the bag with a scrunched up face. "I think this is a mission I should do alone, but if you're determined to make a fuss to a sauced Angela, I'll clean your room and do your laundry if you keep quiet until 10 in the morning. God knows she would go out smashed and still come back with me under her arm."_

Lena cringed at the memory of just twelve hours ago. What had she done to Hana?

"Angela, don't blame her. She's been through enough." Hana's voice was calm and quiet as she left the room.

Angela glanced over at the empty doorway, her face as impassive as before. Something had gone down last night, but Lena wasn't about to stick her nose where it didn't belong. From the way they both acted, Angela and Hana probably had a fight about something; tightness gripped Lena's chest again. The two of them were positively chilly toward one another compared to how they usually were, but Angela looked… repentant? Lena shook her head. If either of them wanted to talk, she was an available emotion-dump receptacle.

The clack of a kettle being put on a burner spurred Lena from her thoughts. "I assume you want some tea," commented Angela.

Lena nodded and poked at her upper leg. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt even as bad as when she first woke, but a deep ache shot from her hip to her ankle. Her toes tingled. The pain from before flew back in, setting her leg on fire. She drew in a sharp breath and tried her best not to curse.

"Just because I worked some of my medical magic doesn't mean that you didn't have a bullet in your leg a few hours ago. I just healed some of the nerve endings with my caduceus. There's still some major damage that's going to keep you off your feet entirely for at _least_ a few days. It should feel okay when you aren't moving, but it'll flare up if you so much as put _any_ pressure on it." Angela rubbed her eyes, which were underlined with dark circles. " _Dammit_ , Lena, I thought I told you to stay _put_."

Lena almost took to her leg bouncing - a nervous habit - but was swiftly reminded that it probably wasn't the best idea. She settled for chewing her nails instead. She had nothing to say to the Swiss. She was not sorry for what she'd done, but she _was_ sorry for being an inconvenience - a worry. A question ate at her tongue. "When can I get back out?"

Angela's tired eyes looked defeated but unsurprised. "With caduceus treatments three times per day, you should be able to walk within a week, but you won't be able to even walk long."

"A week…" Lena hadn't realized she'd spoken until Angela looked away and pulled the kettle off the stove. "Angela, what am I going to do for a week? Hell, how long is it going to be before I can run?"

"At even a slow speed, it'll be six weeks before you can run. Lena, this is a very serious injury, and if we still had _all_ of Overwatch's medical supplies, you could probably run within a week. All we have is what's been able to be salvaged and my caduceus. You might be back at some kind of full speed in six months. I didn't even perform the bullet removal, but it should have gone straight through. I think your suit slowed it down. Thank God that Winston redesigned it."

Lena's ears started buzzing around the time Angela said "six weeks," and her heart started skipping at "six months." Nausea hit her in a dizzying wave. That was going to waste so much time. Time she might not _have_. Her voice came out soft and shaking. "Angela, what am I going to do for six months…"

She remained silent while she prepared Lena's tea, and she handed the mug to Lena, handle first. Her words were small, skeptical, and cautious. She replied simply, "Sit tight."

Lena didn't smoke. Correction. Under every semi-normal circumstance a former Overwatch agent dealt with, Lena did not smoke. In a society that came out with a smoke in one hand and a drink in the other, Lena refused to smoke… Unless she was dealing with an abnormal amount of stress. Then she smoked. A lot. She made an old fashioned freight train look like the most minor smog contributor. When Lena Oxton smoked, she polluted a hundred kilometer radius with the most dense of cigarette fogs.

After Angela gave her the news, Lena Oxton needed a smoke. A lot of smokes.

Angela left to shower after dropping the bomb, and Fareeha came in for some breakfast. "How do you feel?"

"I would _really_ like to go to my room, Fareeha." Her words were short, clipped things that harbored the most minor hostility.

Watchful chocolate colored eyes studied Lena's face before picking her up bridal style. Lena's leg let out another scream, and she had to fight not to cry out. Lena had been shot before, but this felt… worse. Maybe it was the emotional pain that it came with, or maybe it had been a bigger bullet. Maybe both.

Lena stopped Fareeha from putting her on the bed and nearly begged to be put in the small rocking chair near the window. The large Egyptian set her down more gently than even Lena anticipated. She fidgeted nervously. "Could you open the window, love?"

Fareeha's quiet stare met Lena's nervous eyes. "Do you intend on smoking us all out of house and home, little one?"

"So what if I do?" Lena snapped and wished she could reel in her words again. "Sorry, I just…"

Fareeha sat on the edge of Lena's double sized bed and looked out the drape framed window. "I really wish you wouldn't, but I cannot stop you if you decide to do so. It seems that no one can stop you from doing what you want."

Lena cringed and really just wished she had a cigarette in her hand. "Fareeha, I don't do this often. I got really bad news and-"

Fareeha moved to the small dresser holding Lena's few clothes, pulled open the sock drawer, and uncovered the "hidden" pack of cigarettes Lena kept for emergencies. She tossed the box to Lena along with a lighter. "As I said, you're going to do what you want."

"Fareeha…" Lena looked down at the box in her lap and fiddled with the lighter in one hand. "I-"

"You don't have to justify it to me, only to yourself."

Damn, that was cold even for Fareeha.

Almost out of spite, Lena popped one cigarette out and held it to light but stopped, flipped the lighter's lid back over the open flame, and crammed the cigarette back into the box. "Fucking cheers, man," she seethed. Guilt immediately flooded its way in.

Fareeha sat back on the edge of Lena's bed and folded up her carefully designed, robotic legs beneath her. An accident in Egypt had blown off both forearms and everything below her knees. Angela had personally designed Fareeha's current set of prosthetics. She could move so much better out of her suit with them. "Lena, do you feel like you're alone?"

The question hit like… a bullet to the leg. Lena hesitated for a second, figuring out whether she should give the Egyptian warrior the right answer or the true answer. She decided on the truth. "Yeah, love, yeah I do."

Fareeha nodded, seeming pleased. "Do you want to talk about why?"

Lena chewed on that question for a second, setting the cigarette box down by her feet with minimal protest from her leg. "I feel like no one tries to understand why I do what I do. I feel like no one else has any hope for her."

Fareeha didn't immediately respond, and Lena assumed she was either thinking over the reply or coming up with something to say. Fareeha thought before she spoke most times. All things considered, she might have been the wisest person on the base. Lena was almost surprised when Fareeha just nodded and said, "Go on."

Lena snorted incredulously. "That's about it, love. I feel like no one tries to understand me."

Fareeha tiled her head, metal beads in her hair clacking quietly. "I think that some people do try to understand you, Lena." She paused, obviously measuring her words. "Sometimes I think you want to spare people you love by keeping things to yourself or downplaying how you really feel. I think that people here want to help, but they don't know how. In part, they are at fault, but in the other part, you, too, are at fault."

That might have been the most Lena ever heard Fareeha talk at once. The impact of her words hit like a rocket. A barrage of rockets.

"You're saying I should share my feelings? You? You're telling _me_ that _I_ need to express _my_ feelings." Lena almost laughed in the face of her teammate.

Fareeha's sharp gaze pierced through Lena's scorn, ripping it forcefully from her heart. "I am content and share when it's needed. I would never jeopardize my friends and family like you do on a regular basis in search of something for personal gain. You say you do this out of concern for Amélie, but is it the truth, Lena?"

Lena's self-righteous bubble deflated, and she suddenly felt even smaller than she already had. Sometimes, she could be a real ass. Her next words came out in a barely audible whisper. "I'm afraid I'm going to run out of time and that she's going to be left for dead without me. I feel like I'm the only one who can see that she's..." A flash from the previous night flickered through her mind - the feral, feline grin of someone toying with trapped prey. "I want to believe that she's still in there. She shot me at point blank range because she was giving me a _warning_." She looked down at her bandaged leg. Angela's words echoed in her mind. _Six months_. "I'm afraid that I'm wrong."

Fareeha did not speak for another moment and smiled as warmly as the afternoon sun. "Would you like me to move you to your bed? I can get you more pillows." She looked around the spartan room. "I can also get you some entertainment."

An overly somber news lady wearing a yellow cardigan muttered in Dutch on the quiet television in Lena's room. Athena talked over the Dutch woman in a translation. "An anonymous terrorist organization attacked an omnic rally in Venice and surrounding cities this evening. The yearly Venetian Omnic Rally for Peace is consistently one of the largest in Europe, as hundreds of thousands of omnics and human allies flood the streets in an effort to fight for equal rights. This year's protest called for more omnic-human peace talks, demanding an end to the seemingly endless string of hate crimes against the omnics and artificial intelligences within society.

"Details remain scattered and unclear, but the attack began as one or more large explosive devices were detonated in the crowd. In the ensuing panic, dozens of human terrorist agents seeded throughout the crowd revealed fully automatic weapons. They did not discriminate; omnic allies and those with robotic prosthetics were also targeted in the attack; the death toll is unknown, but early reports place estimates around a thousand. None of the shooters survived; each was too deep in the crowd for police to effectively respond, and each used their last bullet on themselves.

No known terrorist organizations have yet claimed responsibility for the tragedy."

Lena itched to go fight. Anger and hurt swelled up within her like a physical force of nature. This was supposed to be what they worked to _stop_. This was the way the world was, and it was her job to _fix it_ , but here she was - stuck in this goddamn bed. Her fingers twitched as if with her guns in hand and her bullet wound throbbed in sympathy. Talon _had_ to be behind this. If they were, no one would ever take credit. They were monsters, but hardly anyone but them knew how big their operation really was. They had their fingers in a lot of pies - and it was hard to misinterpret the message of this attack.

Talon's mission, more or less, boiled down to "purification of humanity." Any artificial intelligence, any person with robotic prosthetics, any person with enhancements, any omnic. They were all enemies. They were all "impure," according to Talon. Talon's mission was to eradicate anyone that was not fully organic human. Even those with life saving technology like pacemakers were considered Others. Outsiders.

Lena thought about Athena, who had to feel some kind of stress from the news. "Hey, Athena," She chewed on her cereal and swallowed. "You don't have to translate for me."

The screen blanked to Athena's screen. "It is my duty to bring you the most information I can about Talon."

Lena scratched her leg. Angela had cleaned the bandaged area twice a day, but Lena hadn't showered in four full days. She was starting to feel a lot more disgusting by the hour. "Yeah, love, but you can't possibly feel good about seeing omnics and AI's like you get hurt or killed." _All they'd wanted was to be accepted._ No. She wouldn't cry. Crying wouldn't help.

Athena went quiet. Her tone was unusually flat upon her reply. "What are you suggesting?"

Lena shrugged, trying to ignore the boiling emotion that was trying to smother her. _So many people._ "Well, maybe you should take care of yourself for the rest of today or maybe even an hour or so. It's gotta be a barrage of this kind of stuff all over the web."

"I must document all possible moves for Talon?" It came out more a question than a statement.

"Yeah, but…" Lena took another bite and munched. She was feeling a lot better from talking to people over the last few days. She felt… less isolated. As hurt as she was, she could only imagine how Athena felt right now. Lena hadn't been the target. "Do what you have to do, and then take a break. I'm sure Winston would understand. Besides, Angela tells me that we're switching safehouses soon, since Widowmaker was so close by. You're going to be super bored when you're by yourself, and you're going to try to analyze all the data so it'll be ready when we get to Florence."

"What do you mean 'take a break?'"

Lena rolled her eyes. "Listen, love, you break your back for us all the time. Go look at some cat videos or something when you start to feel stressed or whatever makes you happy."

Athena obviously hesitated. "I _do_ enjoy small animals."

Lena smiled. "So does everyone, love."

Athena blinked a seemingly grateful thumbs up on the screen and cut out.

Lena finished eating her cereal, which served as her post-dinner-before-bed snack, and looked around her room. Thundering stomps came from across the hall and drew closer. Lena prepared herself for the door to be flung open without courtesy, but the person knocked.

"Uh, yeah come in." Lena tossed the blanket over her legs. She didn't want people to stare.

The door opened slower than a horror movie and Lena could almost hear the Jaws music playing. Hana poked her head in with a wicked grin. "Lena, let's have a sleepover."

Hana had generally stayed away over the last few days, which made Lena a little concerned since she'd figured that Hana was busy beating herself up. Angela had intentionally not left her any crutches so she couldn't rip open her stitches from doing too much too soon.

 _Finally_ , she could give Hana several days' worth a ration of shit. "Woah, love, are you hitting on me?"

Hana rolled her eyes and leaned against the doorway, arms folded. "Do you want to see something cool?"

"Because it sounds like you're hitting on me." A grin fought Lena's straight face.

"For fuck's sake, Lena, I'm trying to show you something cool."

"I'm like, flattered, love, but I see you like a sister and I don't know how well that would work out since we're such good teammates and-"

"Oh my _GOD_ , Lena. Shut _up_."

Lena couldn't fight the smile pulling at her mouth anymore. "Hana, if you can get me out of this room, we can do anything you want."

Within ten minutes, Hana had procured a set of crutches, waterproof bandages, and cleared the bathroom for Lena to get a shower. She'd even put one of those weird medical seats in the shower for Lena so she didn't have to stand the whole time. Lena scrubbed her skin until it was bright red and stinging. Getting clean felt really nice. She'd still had gunk caked on various parts of her from her tussle with Widowmaker. All in all, Lena started to realize how different she'd been acting. Shower thoughts were like that sometimes. Since early October, she'd begun to get agitated too easily. Her anxiety had been at a high. She wanted to blame the Terrible Anniversary, but she wasn't entirely sure that had been the root cause. Maybe Fareeha had been right. Maybe she'd just felt so isolated for so long that she started to lash out.

That was the most likely cause.

She emerged from the shower pink and feeling a little vulnerable without her now-familiar layers of grime. Her wet hair dripped on the shirt Hana was letting her borrow. It'd been awhile since Lena had done her laundry. Angela had done it for her while she recovered, but the clothes still hadn't quite made it back to Lena's room yet. A funny looking wheel with banners above and below proudly stood out on the blue shirt. The English above read, SPEEDWAGON, EST 1952 flanked the wheel, and Japanese sprawled below, which, Lena presumed, said the same thing as the top banner. It was probably from some vintage show that Hana liked.

Hana's room was _significantly_ cleaner than it had been when Lena last visited. No empty cans, bottles, or bags floated around like litter tumbleweeds. Lena hobbled in, still slightly unsure of how to use the crutches. A massive beanbag chair sat next to the game chair just like the papasan that had been pulled near Hana's seat before her many running gaming monitors. A slice of cake from dessert sat on her dresser.

"Oh, shit, are your monitors running?" Lena blurted.

Hana nodded and ushered Lena to the chair next to hers and waved at the camera. "Hey, everyone! This is Tracer. Yeah, _that_ Tracer. She got shot in the leg by an assassin a couple days ago, so she's with me doing a broadcast since she isn't out running around everywhere!"

Discomfort crept into the base of Lena's neck, but Hana slid her a paper along the desk, just out of sight from the camera. The neat scrawl on the paper said, "This is how I get info. Help me out. Call me D. VA if you need."

Lena's jaw almost dropped, but then she remembered she was on camera. She smiled warmly up at the camera and at Hana while Hana talked. The gears were rolling fast. _This is how I get info_. That bit of information nearly blew Lena's mind in that instant.

Hana had an odd ability to get obscure information, but she would never tell anyone how she did it. Now, Lena was privy to Hana's most well kept secret. She used her game fame in order to get an edge on the enemy. What better way to figure out leads than by real people feeding realtime information?

Most of the stream's comments were, "Did you see what happened in Venice?" mixed with other, more explicit comments. Creepy comments.

 _Holy shit_ , Lena thought to herself, eyebrows raising. She knew that Hana had a hard time being a young, beautiful hotshot... but between the death threats and the creepy jerkoffs… How did she ever manage to sift through the garbage to find the valuable information? How did Hana ever feel _safe_?

Lena tuned back in when she felt as though she might be necessary to the commentary.

"Yes, we have heard about the news in Venice and are investigating as we speak. This horrible tragedy has struck us all very deeply, considering that many of us have enhancements or rely on a great deal of technology in order to function. We know that we're getting some backlash from government agencies, saying that we're a part of this attack, especially since we fought the rogues, but I can assure you that Overwatch would never intentionally take innocent lives."

A question rolled in. "Who do you think is responsible?"

Hana inclined her head to Lena, who hesitated then responded, "We, uh. We think that the organization called Talon was behind this particular attack. They're probably also feeding governments and media on our whereabouts and fanning the flames against us. We have a good bit of information being gathered about the incident, and that's our most, uh, what do you call it, Hana?"

"That's our most reliable source," Hana finished, smiling brilliantly before taking a sip of Mountain Dew, whose label clearly faced the camera's direction. "I know this was a short update, and I know I haven't seen much action, but we plan on moving from our camp to closer to what happened today. I wanted to give my personal condolences and grieving for all involved and call you all to fight back against omnic hate. Until our next update everyone, thank you! _Jal-ja_!" She covertly slid another slip of paper to Lena, and she almost wanted to laugh.

Lena smiled and did a two finger salute, "Cheers, loves!"

Hana put up a peace sign and the camera blinked off, but the comments still rolled in. Hana sat there smugly for a minute, grinning her smarmy grin. She rolled her chair over to the wastebin and threw out her half-full Mountain Dew.

"Hey, that wasn't even empty!" Lena reprimanded.

Hana laughed. "I don't even like it. I'm just contractually obligated to have a half empty bottle and drink it at least once during my streams."

Lena feigned horror. "Don't tell me that you actually don't like Doritos either!"

Hana side eyed Lena and laughed. "Lena. I fuckin. LOVE. Doritos."

Hana sneaked out around one in the morning to snag another piece of cake for Lena. When she came back, they both sat on Hana's couch like they had a few nights ago - just without the angst. Lena couldn't get down in the beanbag and get back out by herself, but she did use it as a footrest to keep her leg from tilting too far down.

Hana declared that night "weird old games night" and played around on her ancient PS Vita, playing some Japanese horror mystery game where the people had pink blood, and Lena happily clicked around in Animal Crossing. Hana had kept her 3DS in top condition by manual repairs. It hardly had a single piece left from its original days, but it was still a well working machine despite rigorous use.

They talked quite a bit that night. They talked about the creepy comments Hana received, which she simply called an "Occupational Hazard." They talked about the night Lena had been shot. They talked about how Hana had pulled out the bullet shards. They talked about nail polish. About sweet tooths and military operations. They talked about girls. They talked about boys. They talked about the garbage social constructs surrounding them all and causing conflict - from seemingly straightforward human-omnic relations to gender.

The night started rolling into the late hours and Lena yawned. "Hana, aren't you tired?"

Hana set her game down and stretched. "I usually don't sleep much."

Lena rubbed her eyes. "Why not?"

The other went to the television and clicked on a movie maybe a hundred years old. The graphics were terrible, and the music was super cheesy. Vintage night, for sure.

"I don't get paid to sleep, Lena. I nap during the day so I can be awake for longer intervals."

Lena felt herself laugh, which turned into a yawn. "You mean you just take a bit of a kip when you're tired?"

Hana thought for a second. "Yeah, pretty much. You don't get where I am by sleeping for eight hours straight. Don't get me wrong; it took me years to get the schedule down, and no one understood." She grumbled and started fussing with her bedsheets. "They didn't try to understand."

Lena wiggled down in her seat a little more, preparing to start catnapping. Nightmares never let her have a full night of snooze.

"Lena, you can have the bed. I'm not going to be using it. If I need to catch some zzz's I can nap on the couch." She walked over to her multi-monitor monster and started clicking through comment strings and forums from her stream. "Me and Athena are gonna skim through the feedback for any leads." She hesitated, and it seemed like she was choosing her words very carefully. "This is… really bad. Isn't it?"

Lena was quiet for a moment. "Yeah, love. Talon has always been a right load of bastards, but this…" She shook her head. "I still can't believe it, y'know? That news report just keeps runnin' through my head. All those people… This is going to change things. A lot of things."

"And at a peace rally…" Hana looked down at her hands. "Is this what it's like, Lena?" Her voice was uncharacteristically somber. "Watching people die? We didn't always stop the death in Korea, but the Rogues usually tried to hit military targets above all else. People who knew the risks. We never even knew it was coming, Lena. None of us had a hint from any of our sources. Are we always going to be too late? Do we really help anyone, or do we just avenge them?"

"We help them. That's what Overwatch was always about. Just… sometimes…" Lena sighed. "Sometimes the bastards win. Sometimes you don't have the right information, or the right people, or the right weapons. We'll stop the next one. We'll save as many people as we can, and we'll bring Talon down. We'll save millions."

Hana looked haunted. "Will we?"

Lena nodded. "Course we will. Especially with you on the case! You and Athena will dig something up. I believe in you."

Hana smiled. "Thanks. I mean, obviously, right? I'm the one and only D. VA." She finally glanced back up and punched Lena in the shoulder. "Go to sleep. We're getting mopey, here. I'll wake you if I need you."

"Can you help me to the bed at least?" Lena grumbled.

Hana smiled again, got up, and started helping Lena get snuggled down into the bed. "You're such a noob sometimes. Do you even walk?"

Lena didn't comment about the approximately twenty year old stuffed rabbit she noticed on Hana's dresser. "What's that ridiculous thing you say? GG, ez? Ah, bloody hell, I'm too knackered for this."

Hana let out a genuine laugh - not a show for a camera, not a humoring chuckle. A genuine laugh. She knew as well as anyone that Lena's native slang crept in when she was tired. "Close enough."

Once Lena was completely nested, Hana asked an abrupt, serious question, but Lena wasn't exactly surprised. Hana had been asking things leading up to it all night. "Lena, did you love Amélie?"

Lena was too tired to lie, but her frank response surprised even herself. "I still do." Silence fell between them for a second, and Lena broke it with sleep slurred words. Hana's blankets were so soft and warm… "Hey, one more thing, Hana. Make sure to look at fluffy animal pics for Athena. She works so hard."

Consciousness had already started slipping from Lena, but she faintly heard Hana say, "Don't worry, Lena. We're all safe. Good night, sis."

At the last word, sleep took Lena in its gentle embrace.


	7. No Name

Widowmaker slid her metal tray through a metal slot and threw her paper cup in the trash. She didn't need to eat often, but she forced down some of Talon's nutrient paste once a week and went on her way. Disdain crept into her stomach at the grunts loitering in the cafeteria area that gorged themselves with unnecessary foods. _Ham_. _Apples_. _Ice cream_. She wasn't sure if she thought it was disgusting or if she was jealous. She tried not to think about it too long. Some small part of her hated seeing the underlings with bowls of ice cream, drowned in hot fudge and covered with cookie crumble or sprinkles.

She turned on her heel and walked away from the lunch crowd, grateful that she only had to endure this onslaught of people once a week. She almost didn't know how people did it three times a day every day. Talon, along with slowing her heart rate, had slowed her metabolism. She didn't need much sustenance, but Talon only allowed her to eat dense, flavorless paste for all her needs. They practically forbade her from consuming anything else because of the potential to clog her senses with unnecessary sensory input.

That was Widowmaker's life at Talon. Receive as little "unnecessary" sensory input as possible, which, according to them, cut down on "unnecessary" distractions. She meandered back to her room to suit up for the shooting range. Hallways led to more hallways that led to elevators for more floors full of hallways. Everything was the same matte steel. Upon arrival to her cell, she took her keycard out of a cargo pocket and slid it through the card reader beside her door. The red light flicked to green, and she peered into the unusually dark room. Talon kept lights on in all areas from 05:00 to 22:30 - the only exceptions being the shooting range and the garage, which were always lit. This anomaly either meant that her particular cell block had been powered down, or that all of her lights had gone out at once. She assumed the first one was the correct scenario.

She stood in the doorway, sliding door beeping in protest that she had interrupted the sensor for it to close. She slipped the keycard back into her pocket, took a breath, and prepared herself for an attack. The dark posed a problem for her. In the complete absence of light, she could not see, but if there was even a pinprick of illumination, she could place most forms. If she'd had her visor, it would not have been an issue at all. Widowmaker passed through the doorway and into the room, door sliding by her as if sealing her within her own tomb.

The overhead lights clicked on upon her entry to reveal the man she'd been spending so much time with on the corner of her bed, turning over her brush in his hands. A desire flickered across her mind at seeing him handle her few possessions. Him dead, knife protruding handle first from his chest with her hands covered in his blood. Maybe that wasn't a desire but a memory. It wasn't him who she had murdered. That had been her first assignment. What had his name been…?

"Widowmaker," he acknowledged. His maroon shirt and black suit brought startling color to the room. She almost expected the colors to bleed off his clothes and directly onto her bare mattress.

She inclined her head, not breaking her line of sight. She did not speak because she had not been asked a question or prompted to verbally respond.

"Would you like more things for your chambers?"

Her sharp eyes glanced him over, but his eyes still remained locked on her brush. He plucked a strand of hair from it and inspected it. Sniffed it. Widowmaker narrowed her eyes. "Material possessions are not necessary. I _do_ require more shampoo, however."

He nodded in acknowledgement. "You don't even have a mirror in here. How do you put up your hair?"

Widowmaker did not respond, assuming it was a rhetorical question or a question to himself. His eyes slid over to her for the first time. The skin on his face rippled as if water on a low boil. She'd angered him by ignoring his question. The rapidly regenerating and decaying cells made him look like a felt doll sometimes. She distantly remembered a time where the man they called Reaper's skin had unnerved her. Now, she used it as a gauge for his generally poorly controlled emotions.

Her voice came out flat. "It's muscle memory."

His skin settled back into that perpetually fuzzy way. His nose constantly looked muddled or blurred. He had no distinct facial features other than his eyes and his facial hair. His indistinct lips parted in a wolfish smile. There was nothing kind in that smile. That smile was a business smile. He came with a purpose.

He stood, and Widowmaker's eyes lingered on the corner where he had been sitting, waiting for his dark suit to stain her white mattress. It did not. Reaper walked over to her, took her by the hand, and guided her to his former seat. She took it, and he knelt before her, placing a hand on her covered calf.

"Why do you wear these clothes, Widowmaker?" He looked over her, analyzing her, prodding her, and squeezing her muscles. He clearly held distaste for the khaki cargo pants, black tank top, and combat boots - a standard look for Talon's underlings. Perhaps that was why he disapproved.

Her skin had not yet fully healed from her reprogramming. Not only had they run a great deal of volts and amps through her, but they'd also used an old technique to distribute pain - using dermal micro-incisions along her muscles and tendons to drive out any physical response to pain or other physical stimuli. The process had taken several days.

"They are clean and convenient."

"These are the clothes of someone who ranks much lower than you do, Widowmaker. Are you not proud of who you are?" He ran his fingers through her hair.  
"I serve Talon in whatever I may wear, but if it is unacceptable, I will dispose of these garments in favor of my suit." Wearing her suit wouldn't be the most inconvenient thing, but she would have to wash it daily. Talon had no spares.

Reaper chuckled and sat beside her on the bed. "No, I'm not here to criticize your fashion choices." He unbuttoned his suit jacket and pulled out a manilla folder. "I'm here to make sure you're ready for your next assignment." With large, static-fuzzy hands, he grabbed Widowmakers chin and pulled her mouth open, checking her teeth for cracks from reprogramming. It was an occupational hazard. On her body, his writhing skin felt like the scuttling legs of a thousand insects. He closed her jaw and checked her eyes. "Hmm… your eyes are bloodshot. You need to rest before this mission."

He began to put the manilla envelope back in his jacket.

"No." Widowmaker felt a shiver run down her spine as he glared at her. She had not been addressed.

"What do you mean 'no,' Widowmaker?" With the chill in his voice, it was a wonder that the air he breathed didn't condense into a fog.

She chose her words incredibly carefully. "I am prepared for any mission that Talon has for me. I will make sure to succeed no matter the surrounding circumstances or my current state of being."

Reaper chuckled, the frosty mood dispersed. "Do you know what makes us alike, Widowmaker?"

She said nothing. This time the question was clearly rhetorical.

"We both hate Overwatch. Talon loves us both. The only thing that makes us different is that…" He ran his fingers through her hair and twisted them around her ponytail, pulling her head back. A gesture of dominance. He did it every time they had a private encounter such as this."I outrank you, Widowmaker. _I_ make the decision."

She fought swallowing the pooling spit in the back of her throat. "And what is your decision?"

He tightened his grip and yanked harder, undoubtedly snatching a few strands from the roots. He leaned closer and inhaled. "Your job is not to ask questions. Or did you forget?" His voice was barely a whisper, his hot breath on her ear setting her skin crawling.

He pulled back just enough to look her in the eye, and she held his gaze.

With his free hand, he threw the assignment onto her lap and let go of her hair, running his fingers over her bare shoulder. "Consider it, and take who you need. I would _prefer_ this to be a solo mission, considering the subject matter."

He turned without another word, firmly securing his mask before slipping out of the door.

Widowmaker broke Talon's seal on the folder and spilled its contents onto her bed with a smile playing on her lips.

"Oh, chéri, you've had this coming."

The man they call Reaper lingered around the indoor helipad. Widowmaker knew his old name, but as with all higher Talon agents, his codename _was_ his name. Somewhere inside her, she knew he meant for his presence to be a threat, but she did not view him as such. He merely posed as another of Talon's pawns, readily deployed and controlled.

They locked eyes momentarily as she boarded the hovercraft. Familiarity flickered through their mutual gaze. They were alike in a way, though perhaps not in the way he had mentioned in their private meeting. Widowmaker considered the thought as the entry ramp closed, and she took her seat. Vaguely, she wondered if Reaper knew exactly where Talon headquarters was. For having spent much of her conscious life there, she could only vaguely guess at where Talon had covertly situated their miles upon miles of underground fortress. She guessed at somewhere in continental east Asia. She didn't know the exact flight speed of Talon's aircraft, but she could guess; from there, calculating flight times to her various destinations all over the world gave her a rough estimate. If Talon suspected she knew even that much, the information would likely be burned from her brain, along with everything else that was unnecessary for a tool like her.

Reaper, as a higher authority and leader of the Overwatch specific division as well as his own battalions, was most likely privy to more of Talon's secrets than she. She, after all, was still a hazard. She'd proven that.

This time, no one escorted her to her objective. The only one there was the pilot, protected by bulletproof shielding and nigh unreachable from Widowmaker's side. This objective would earn Talon's trust back. She could redeem herself with a success.

She rubbed at her wrists. Dark violet marks still marred her skin from her time spent strapped in the chair where they tortured her. She hadn't resisted and, in part, wondered why. Another thought slid into her mind like a firm wall and pushed the causal query aside. Talon could not be fought. Talon could not be resisted.

She turned the conversation with Reaper over in her mind. He'd watched her reprogramming. Fixing. She'd seen him smile when she cried out. She did not cry out in pain after that. In the haze of agony, a distant thought touched her. What if he enjoyed watching pain because he, too, suffered? His condition surely couldn't have been pleasant. Her curiosity stemmed not out of empathy but of analysis - searching for a weak point. Curiosity had faded with more incisions along her biceps.

He survived on hatred. She survived on the kill.

Widowmaker took a breath and clicked on her headset to drive out her thoughts. Thinking had gotten her in too much trouble last time. _It is not my job to think_.

The roar of chattering underlings reached her ears, yet, as with every other aspect of her life, she could not engage. Talon forbade it. Her sole interaction came from direct orders and moments between her and her prey. She could gaze upon happenings, but she could never be a part of them.

And so is the life of a spider.

Widowmaker arrived in Venice in the wee hours of morning. She touched her visor, improving her night vision, and disembarked the craft, which whistled away as quiet as a gentle breeze. The nameless pilot had dropped her in Venice's Palace Gardens, only a five minute walk from her destination - La Basilica di San Marco.

The night provided her cover. Surely, no one would stop her - or even see her. During the day, she would simply remain perched, and if some unwitting fool came onto the rooftop, they had to die. It had happened more than once. Such pointless loss of life felt… wasteful - unnecessary, but there was no margin for error in her line of work. Talon disposed of the bodies, most times - on other occasions, she would have to either deal with the stink or sacrifice her position to save her nose, which Talon's experiments enhanced further.

Widowmaker touched her rifle like a security blanket. A flicker of sensation from before Talon crossed her mind. Fear of being caught. She pushed the thought aside and continued walking. Fear… She remembered fear, and logically, she knew that once she had been a child. She remembered harboring a great fear of spiders, but she could not recall a single specific instance in which she had been afraid. It was less a memory than it was an impression, an almost forgotten trace of a feeling. She had no _memories_ of her life Before. She put those feelings down to childishness, just as she considered anything half-remembered from her life before Talon as the recollections of a child. No matter what age she had been when she felt these things, she would always say, "when I was a girl." The fear, however, remained. Instinct. Talon could wipe her clean ten thousand times, but basic instinct could never be washed from the fabric of her mind.

No matter how Talon viewed and treated her, she was still human underneath her blood starved skin.

Wasn't she?

Widowmaker aimed up at a spire on the basilique and pressed a button on her cuff. A grappling hook shot out and landed precisely on the point she desired. She pulled herself along the front of the church with a small shiver of satisfaction. No onlookers. No security. Very convenient.

The pack around her waist held various things she would need for her long stay. Plenty of bullets, a few venom traps, a miniature kickstand for her rifle, a bar of congealed nutrient paste, a heat reflective tarp, and a dish towel. She spread the dish towel on the ground for her knees. The way the gravel pinched at her flesh impeded fast movement, making her joints pop and creak. She looked at her tarp in its carefully folded square and eyed the dish towel. Talon would never know if she took a little cat nap. Right?

She tapped at her cuff a few times to set a timer for thirty minutes. Widowmaker, great Talon assassin, rolled up her towel and spread the heat reflecting tarp over her body, letting the fatigue fall on her like a ton of bricks.

She did not rest easy.

Widowmaker did not expect the last week's activities did not go easy on her. She did not know how long she rested dreamlessly before the horrors crept in.

 _Fire and smoke drifted through the air, seeming to attach to every nose hair and sticking in her throat. The side of her face ached with a dull burn. Her ears rang. An explosive had detonated only five feet away from her, triggered by Tracer's lightning speed. That damn girl._

 _Blue light._

 _Electric blue light._

 _Widowmaker fell into the swirling blue, tumbling through memories - hauntings of Tracer. Of Lena Oxton._

 _Widowmaker landed on her feet in a sprint across rooftops and through dark alleyways. She was always running from_ her _._

 _Gravel caught her shoe, and she skidded in a delicate slide. Lena shot by on her lightning steed. Widowmaker threw her rifle to her shoulder and looked for Lena, but the small woman stood there, looking terrified but set. Widowmaker took the shot but felt herself pull to the left. Lena cried out and clutched the side of her head, blood immediately flowing from a bullet graze. Widowmaker hissed and worked the bolt, loading in another round. This time, she would not miss. She should have practiced_ harder _\- the requirements for this mission had stated she must use a larger, more old fashioned rifle._

 _She looked out from behind her scope and saw Lena standing there, hands clutched by her sides. Her left hand was bloody from touching the graze wound. Tears filled Lena's eyes, but she did not move. The tears held steady even though she shook._

 _She yelled despite not being far away. "If you want to kill me, get it over with. I'm tired of this game. I'm tired of this cat and mouse." Her voice broke, and tears fell. "Widowmaker, if that's all you are, kill me. Let. Me. Die."_

 _Rage settled in Widowmaker's stomach, bile gurgling at the back of her throat. Tracer was right there. The biggest pain in her ass… and she was_ _ **right there**_ _. Her lips tingled as she ground her teeth and threw down her rifle. If Widowmaker was going to kill her, she would watch the life leave Lena's eyes as she killed her with her bare hands. That was_ _ **her**_ _target. Lena was_ _ **hers**_ _. Widowmaker felt herself let out a feral yell as she charged forward with all her strength._

 _Her heart pounded. Her skin burned. Her lungs ached._

 _Widowmaker hit Lena full force and drove the small one into the gravel rooftop, hands adeptly and immediately around her neck. She squeezed instead of pushed. It didn't require much pressure to snap someone's neck or crush their trachea. Widowmaker wanted to draw this out. She wanted Lena to feel the anger - the unbridled fury- that she felt. Her chest burned. Her vision started blurring. She went from feeling everything to being unable to feel her nose. Oh, the heat of Lena's dainty neck. Widowmaker squeezed harder, and Lena's feeble hand came up, not to wrench away Widowmaker's hand, but to touch her fingers._

 _Widowmaker recoiled, snatching her hands back but still sitting on Lena's pelvis. Lena coughed and gasped, touching her neck gingerly. She sputtered and tried to roll over only to be pinned._

 _Pins and needles dug into Widowmaker's flesh. She would know how it felt. The air suddenly felt too heavy for her lungs. The ground flew up to her face, and the nearby wall towered above her. Her breaths came too quickly to control. She reeled away from Lena, pushing herself off and away and keeping her horrified eyes locked on her._

 _Lena sat up and caught herself leaning a little too hard on her arm. She tried to crawl toward the overwhelmed Widowmaker only to be warned away with a whimper._

 _Widowmaker clutched her chest, heart beating harder than she'd ever remembered. Oh, God, it hurt. It burned. Her clothes constricted more with every breath. The outside chill she could no longer feel on her lips nor on her fingers, which clutched at her suit. She was dying, she knew it._

" _Widowmaker," Lena rasped. "Widowmaker, listen to me. Breathe. Take a deep breath."_

" _I_ _ **can't**_ _," she wheezed. Some kind of terrible poison had just been covertly injected into her veins._

" _What do you feel?"_

" _ **I can't**_ _," she wanted to scream but could only pant instead. "Too much."_

 _After several minutes of Lena's calming voice, Widowmaker's heart rate was mostly restored, and feeling reentered her extremities and face. Lena, seeing Widowmaker more calm, collapsed onto the ground laughing tiredly._

 _Widowmaker hissed, still clutching her chest fearfully. The gears of her mind turned faster than she could ever recall. What had Lena done to her?_

 _Lena rolled on her side, coughing and laughing. "I can't believe it." She coughed some more. "The great and mighty Widowmaker just had a bloody panic attack."_

 _The words passed through Widowmaker's ears but would not register. She was suddenly extremely fatigued. Curiosity started slipping in where terror had just begun to fade. Curiosity that she had not felt since before her time at Talon. It burned her insides like a fire, making her feel warm inside but ill at the same time._

" _Why did you provoke me?" Widowmaker's voice came out in a tense whisper._

 _Lena opened one eye and looked at her. "I had a choice to run. You had a choice to shoot. You had a choice to keep at me until you killed me, but here I am. Here you are. We're a mess, love."_

 _Widowmaker hissed. "What of it?"_

 _The next words changed her life forever. "Because, love, we all have choices. No matter what we do, we always have a choice. We can run our gambit and play our game like everyone wants us to, or we can make a choice. We can choose not to."_

 _Something pulled Widowmaker up and away from the scene - the memory - and threw her into an odd blur of fractured images. She watched herself draw near to Lena. In another image, her own hands twisted in Lena's hair, her lips on Lena's throat. Heat. Passion. Other images saw Widowmaker's fist pulverizing Lena's porcelain cheek, or locked Lena in her own dreaded treatment chair with Widowmaker calling the shots with a laugh, as Lena begged and screamed for mercy. They came and passed as quickly as drops of rain in a storm, strange, impossible emotions coursing through her veins, and in each snapshot there was one constant._

 _Everywhere there was Lena._

Widowmaker felt herself surfacing from her restless dreams, the beeps of her alarm pulling at the moorings of her consciousness.

Blearily, she slapped at her cuff until the beeping ceased. Slapping blindly at it caused the still healing cuts along both forearms to smart a good bit before settling back into a dull ache. Pain was no stranger to Widowmaker, but pain could be suppressed. It was as simple as mind over matter. She rolled onto her back and looked at the sky, still dotted with fading starlight as the sun's first rays colored the horizon a lighter purplish blue - like the sun speeded the healing for the night's bruised yet beautiful skies.

She shook her head, uncertain of why she'd even considered looking at the sunrise for anything other than for calculations, but she did not look away as the warm light peeked over the evergreens and glinted off the dew settled on broad leafed trees. Something stirred in her chest, the way it had when she'd seen the Talon underlings eating ice cream. She couldn't place it. Disdain? Wanting? Possibly nostalgia from Before. Possibly longing. None of those feelings had a place in an assassin, particularly a Talon assassin.

Her cuff pinged, and she tore her eyes away from the purples fading to pinks fading to yellows and blues. The words on her cuff were simple.

Incoming call.

She cleared her throat and tapped her earbud, making sure all traces of sleep in her voice were far flung. "Oui."

"Status report, Widowmaker." The gravelly voice on the other end could only belong to Reyes… Reaper.

Widowmaker, great assassin, rolled her eyes and kept her voice neutral. "Area secured."

"And your equipment?"

"Functional."

"What about you, Widowmaker? Are you functional?"

The words sent shivers down her spine. Her mind screamed at her, loud unintelligible wailing. She needed to be reset. Her body ached and her heart squeezed at the mere thought, but she knew that she showed weakness as she sat there alone. Weakness that could cause cracks. She already felt as though she were chipped, a stress fracture eating at her composure. At her worth as Talon's blade.

But she had a choice.

"Widowmaker, are you functional?"

She made her choice.

Widowmaker kept her voice steady. "Oui."


	8. Colorblind

The morning passed uneventfully for the Widowmaker, who analyzed every person passing through her visual web. The crowd started gathering around eleven that morning, and by one, at least a thousand people clustered together in Piazza San Marco. They held signs and candles and chanted in several different tongues. They were protesting.

Widowmaker narrowed her eyes and looked down her sights, anticipating her target to be among them; however, he was not there. Perhaps, he would stick to his more hermit-like habits and help the injured and console the grieving. That would require something much more close range - something much more intimate.

She sighed and rolled away from her rifle, perched on its stand. She looked up at the sky, noting the diving and darting birds above and secretly wishing she could be more like them.

Why should it be secret?

 _It is not my job to ask questions._

But… so what? Questions were a part of life, and she was tired of being dead.

Something stirred in her chest, causing a deep ache to spear her heart, and she gasped. Her hand went to her sternum and compressed the pressure point there. It wouldn't help, but it would give her a focus in order to control the oncoming storm of emotions. She pushed herself up in one swift motion and paced the length of the roof, listening to the rising chants dance on the light breeze. Their voices agitated her. She tapped on her cuff with growing impatience. She'd been sitting there for over twelve hours with no target or even whisper of his name.

She looked over the front again, making sure not to be spotted by the crowd. Blood stained the piazza's stone groundcover. No amount of scrubbing would remove the horrors that had transpired only days earlier. Only time and weather would wear away the porous stone and, with it, its horrible stains. Bolts and shiny metallic parts crowded the forgotten corners of the piazza. Such unnecessary loss.

But why was it unnecessary? Talon called for the eradication of omnic lifeforms and those assisted too far by technology. Widowmaker was one of those. She knew that her time would come once Talon's hold was strong enough to carry on without her. She knew she was disposable. Invariably, Talon had several others like her, but she knew that she was the best of them. She was everything that they'd hoped for, and as inconvenienced as they might be by her loss, she could and would be replaced. After a certain point, the world would not need Widowmaker.

Time. Time. Time.

She did not know how much time she had, but she spotted another difference between herself and Reyes. Talon could not hit Overwatch like they wanted without him. He was _invaluable._ Something bubbled within her, just above her diaphragm. She knew this feeling well. Hatred.

She hated Gabriel Reyes. She hated his security. She hated his _willingness_. She hated his seat of power over her. She hated him.

Powerful fantasies of her over him overwhelmed her, hands bloodied and a knife protruding from his chest. Except… The man she stood over was not Reyes. This man was not the man she hated. This was her first kill. This was her initiation into Talon. This was her _birth_.

But why couldn't she remember his name? She remembered the names of every last one of her assignments. But then...

His name didn't matter.

Widowmaker stretched and groaned, a tiny flicker of thought passing through her mind like the world's fastest bullet train. She knelt beside her rifle and looked through the sights once more. Situated in the adjacent Procuratie Nuove sat the Caffé Florian, which had few patrons given the protest right outside. Most tourists tended to steer away from protesters, but then again, after the tragedy, Widowmaker was almost positive that Venice was not a tourist destination.

Foolish people.

Talon never struck in the same place twice.

She returned her attention to the café. She had no money, but she was sure that procuring funds would be the least of her problems. She scoffed at the idea that she _couldn't_ do something so essential to survival as steal. Talon did not frown upon stealing. Their policy mainly centered on whether or not someone was smart enough to keep their belongings under close enough watch to _prevent_ their items from being stolen.

She had to calculate this carefully.

Talon provided cloaking devices for their agents that were incorporated into each of the special operative's suits. These devices could run for only twenty minutes before their batteries went out altogether. Another downside was that any interruption between sensors for more than three seconds would cause the image to waver and disappear. For their massive flaws, they were some of the top technology that Talon held close to its chest. These cloaking devices could disguise anyone to look like anything. They could change the appearance of clothes as well as skin tone, hair color, and even facial features. The newest addition to the cloaking devices was the ability to alter the appearance of facial features, preventing AI's from spotting an operative in a crowd. The battery, though limited, could be recharged by a solar powered pack being attached to an agent's cuff. Talon regarded waste, such as a one-use product, as unconscionable and made their cloaking devices easily rechargeable. Leaving agents in the field completely stranded could cut down on success and survival rate. Much of Talon's science department, from what Widowmaker knew, worked on these day and night in order to keep their operatives safe from assassination or "accident."

She carefully walked over to the edge of the building, out of sight from any protesters or innocent onlookers and dropped down with the guide of her grappling hook. With a few clicks on her cuff, she felt a tingling sensation dance over her skin like a delicate electrical pulse. She looked down at her hand. It was… much more like Lena's skin than her own in a sense that it was more filled with melanin than bloodless blue or purple. The bruises on her wrists could not be seen. The nails of her hands were painted dark purple. She could see through the device only if she squinted, so she was sure that no casual onlooker would notice. On her short walk toward the café, the clever Widowmaker picked up 109,00 Euros. Such unobservant simpletons.

She touched her wrist, where her cuff would have been. A quiet, automated voice spoke in her ear. Cloaking time remaining: 18 minutes and 37 seconds.

That meant she had 18 minutes and 109 Euros to burn.

Widowmaker felt herself smirk, a joyful giggle bubbling from her lips like a small schoolgirl.

This time, Talon could not keep her from satiating her bone deep craving for ice cream.

In the middle of the week after a massive tragedy, the Caffé Florian hosted few patrons. The inside of the restaurant presented centuries of architecture, art, and design. Most importantly, their kitchen, despite the small number of patrons, bustled and clanked about busily. That would mean that she could get her sweets and go before her cloaking device's battery went out. Unfortunately, she could not sit - another downfall of Talon's technology. Sitting would interrupt the signal between the device's points and cause an image projection failure. She could not afford even the most minute waver in her disguise.

Widowmaker walked in to find no available host to seat her. Part of her wondered how she would pull this off, considering that she could not sit down without device failure. Widowmaker mulled over her possibilities, absently staring down the woman across from her, who looked back at her blankly. Something clicked in her mind to look away to prevent unwanted staring. The woman she'd seen looked away in the same direction. Then something occurred to Widowmaker.

She looked back at the woman, and the woman looked back at her. That's when Widowmaker noticed that everything behind her, she could see in that wall - no - in that _mirror_. The woman was _her_.

Slightly dazed, Widowmaker inspected how her cloaking device disguised her. She was a tallish woman with high cheekbones and a haughty look. Her skin was a warm caramel color that suited her amber eyes. Her clothes were neutral colors, accented with greens - her shoes bronze sandals with shiny gold studs. The pack around her waist remained, but with this look appeared much more like a touristy addon than an assassin's bag. Her hair, which, in actuality, was pulled high and tight, appeared to tumble over her shoulders, sleek and shining. No tattoo marred her right forearm.

That strange feeling stuck a chord in her heart once more - the feeling she'd had when watching people interact with one another intimately. Something within her threatened to awaken, but she pushed it aside, almost thankful for an apologetic host who muttered in Italian.

"In inglese, per favore." She nodded to the poor, sweaty man.

He nodded back. "How may I serve you today, miss?" His accent was surprisingly good.

"I require an outdoor seat." She thought a second and tacked on, "Please."

Her eyes shifted back to the full length mirror only a second before she turned to follow.

Once outside, he pulled the seat out for her to sit, but she declined. An excuse cropped up in her mind, something witty and conducive to her touristy appearance. "I've been sitting all day. I would prefer to stand."

It wasn't necessarily a lie.

He nodded and went away.

Widowmaker tapped on her wrist once more, to which the automated voice warned, "Sixteen minutes remaining before battery failure."

Her heart skipped. Perhaps this was not the wisest thing for her to do. Her craving intensified at being so close to her goal, elation almost lighting her heart ablaze. She would succeed in this mission. Getting this distraction out of the way would only make her focus better for her main objective.

A waiter came out and started chittering away at her. She stopped him.

"I require tea and ice cream."

The waiter's distain almost came out as a verbal slap to Widowmaker's face. "Which _ones_?" he spit.

Widowmaker felt her eyebrows knit together and her mouth open slightly. "W-which ones?"

"For teas, we have Darjeeling, Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Sogno Veneziano, Pai Mu Tan, Fiori di Té Florian…" He kept going for at least another six or seven options.

Widowmaker's chest felt tight. So many options…

"And for ice creams, we serve Affogato Florian, a vanilla ice cream with a topping of your choice... " He listed another two or three, but Widowmaker did not hear him. She watched his lips move, and felt as though her well oiled machine within her mind had a gear suddenly snag on something. Something… Too many choices.

She'd spent so much time under Talon - she'd spent her whole life under Talon's fierce grip. Talon stripped away her choices. Talon stripped away her will. Never had she had so many choices and never all at once. Her chest hurt. Oh, her chest hurt. Like the night on the roof with Lena.

"Miss…?" The waiters address barely reached her ears, but it seemed like he'd said it at least a few times. "Are you alright? You're looking a little blue."

All the fog in her mind suddenly cleared away, and her confusion departed into sudden alertness. Widowmaker's hand crept to the butter knife on the table, her long fingers quietly grasping it, and started processing the waiter's words at top speed. There was no way he could have said that and not seen through her disguise. That meant he had to die. Collateral damage would be unfortunate, but her mission and remaining unseen were more important than one man's life.

Her focus snapped into a sharp, precise spear that immediately spotted four points where she could jab the knife and make her getaway. It was blunt, but if she applied the proper force just so and her aim was true - and it _would_ be - he would be dead an instant before he could make a move. From there, multiple escape routes spread themselves out before her, easy ways to get lost in the crowds and evade any potential pursuit. Her skipping heart stilled and her breath became slow and steady. This was a choice she could make with ease.

With a whisper, thick with caution, she asked, "What did you say, little man?"

The waiter broke into an immediate sweat, and Widowmaker could smell his fear. "I-I asked if you were feeling alright. And…" He looked toward the protesters who shouted suddenly. "I asked if you needed a menu."

Widowmaker did not respond immediately, but eased her grip on the knife. "Yes, a menu would be convenient." She paused, watching the nervous waiter walk quickly away. It was a relief that she wouldn't have to end his life. One more murder would hardly stand out in this town, but it would be much more convenient to avoid unwanted attention of _any_ variety. She called out, "And I'm in a rush. Be quick."

Every minute, it seemed, Widowmaker tapped on her cuff to check her remaining time. Every check made the well of anxiety in her chest crack a little more. Five minutes remaining.

The waiter brought out the food and a check because of her rush. She left the appropriate money in the check folder and subconsciously left several extra dollars as a tip. Part of her wondered why she'd done it. Another part of her was too busy feeling the sensor's battery life breathing down her neck. When the waiter departed, she allowed him to retreat back indoors before considering her options carefully. She _could_ try to scarf down all her food in a few minutes and return to her perch or… She felt herself nod in agreement with herself. It was the only logical option. It was the only _safe_ option.

Widowmaker unzipped the pack around her waist and, with a quick, cautious look around, starting shoving in the plate's worth of macarons as well as a small cheese pastry. She picked up the bowl of ice cream, tucking it up under her arm, and the cup of tea, walking away casually. Widowmaker did not run from the café, but she did flee. Quickly. No tea spilled.

She slung her cuffed arm up and broke through the cloaking device just as its effects petered out. Her escape to the basilica's roof went unnoticed.

Widowmaker sat on the roof of La Basilica di San Marco, basking in the late afternoon sun. She sipped her tea, feeling its warmth washing over her through her stomach. Drinking any significant amount pained her, as did eating. Her meal portions and water allowances with Talon were just enough to make her functional, but she did not thrive that way. The tea chased away the cold in her bones like the sun pushed back the dark. Some distant part of her associated the feeling with something intimately familiar, and she chased the feeling, its feathery light softness just barely slipping through her fingers.

She looked down at the bowl of ice cream, concern coloring her thoughts before she remembered that ice cream would melt unless refrigerated. Her cheeks and ears suddenly burned as a twisting in her stomach rolled through. Had she been sitting in the sun too long? Was she sunburned? She slurped at the semi-melted ice cream and rolled a hazelnut around on her tongue. This particular nut hadn't struck a chord of fear within her upon hearing the name, unlike another ice cream's description had. Why would she be afraid of a food? Was it from a time Before? Had Talon tortured her with cashews at some point?

Two words suddenly rang out in her mind as clearly as if someone had spoken to her.

 _Cashew allergy._

She shoveled in a chocolate syrup coated spoonful of ice cream and let it melt in her mouth. The contrast of the tea's warmth and the ice cream's chill brought a faint smile to her lips. She could almost remember doing something similar in her past life.

On the third bite of ice cream, a lance of sheer, icy, unadulterated pain shot over her eyebrow and through her head. She cried out and grasped at her face, searching for the bullet hole that would inevitably kill her in seconds. Why wasn't she dead already? Nothing was there. She clutched her head in agony, rocking back and forth on the roof, ice cream bowl tucked between her crossed legs. Was Talon punishing her for her rebellion? Did they know?In about thirty seconds, the terrible pain faded.

As the pain receded, another two words cropped up in her mind, blooming like a time lapse photo of a flower bud.

 _Brain freeze._

Widowmaker sat there on the roof, a speck in the wide world, and laughed. She laughed at the thought Talon could hurt her here, and at this point, she simply felt too joyous to care about any potential of them knowing. They were everywhere, sure, but they were _not_ everywhere. She laughed at Gabriel Reyes and how he thought she could be _controlled_ by him. She laughed at herself for forgetting that brain freeze happened when someone ate cold things too quickly. She laughed at her own embarrassment. She laughed. She felt _alive_ , and this time... this time, no one had needed to die. Her roaring laughter cut into her sides and brought tears to her eyes, and she fell over on her side, spilling the last hazelnut onto the ground.

After a good long minute, her laughter faded to a chuckle, a giggle, a small smile, and to a creeping feeling in the pit of her stomach. It had felt so good, but laughter… it was unnatural. She wasn't supposed to _laugh_. Laughing didn't help an assassin find or kill her target. Why could she laugh? Talon was supposed to have burned that out of her.

Her mind began to run inexorably down a familiar track. Paranoia. Sure, they _probably_ couldn't see her here, now, breaking into hysterics, but… what if one of the protesters had been a Talon agent in disguise? What if they really _were_ watching her movements? It wouldn't be unlike Talon to keep their agents in check this way. If she could laugh about something as _normal_ as ice cream, how could Talon trust her? Ultimately, she was Talon's tool and was clearly malfunctioning. Talon did not have a place for tools that weren't 100% operational and stable. She'd never suffered a glitch this soon after a treatment… Had she been broken beyond repair?

She sat for at least twenty minutes, that anxious well in her insides threatening to crack and burst. She chewed her lip and eyed the hazelnut suspiciously almost the entire time. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, arms around her legs.

But nothing happened.

She was alone.

Not only was she alone, she still had one macaron left. And a cheese danish.

The evening stretched on, and she nibbled at her cheese danish a little less voraciously than her other things, the anxiety in her stomach still churning.

Her tea was long gone, the floral aftertaste in her mouth not an unpleasant one, but she did want something else to drink - like water. When was the last time she'd actually gotten thirsty?

Night slipped in, embracing the world in its gentle purple-black arms. The city's glow softened the harsh sky. Widowmaker finished off the cheese danish, saving most of the sweet and tangy middle parts for last. She looked down in her pack, where the slightly gooey macaron sat like a great pink button. The others had tasted wonderful - a slight crunch with a soft center. Much better than _nutrient paste_.

Tentatively, she picked it up and turned it over in her fingers. It was no longer cold, and some of the filling dripped on her hand. Luckily, none had gotten in her bag. She took a deep whiff of the small confection. The fresh smell hit her like a train, and she suddenly stood in a field picking strawberries. She didn't know how she knew, but she'd taken the day off from work to go pick strawberries with… an incredibly chatty, happy person. They planned to bake a cake together.

Widowmaker almost threw the harmless treat aside in an effort to escape the memory.

Her first _real_ memory from Before.

She squinted at the treat, now cautious but more curious than cautious. She set her teeth on the edge and cracked through the outer layer. As soon as the taste hit her tongue, her mouth filled with water, and a shiver rolled down her spine. A cinder caught fire in her stomach.

Strawberries. She liked strawberries.

Widowmaker spent the rest of the night thinking about that strawberry field. She couldn't remember who she'd been with, but she knew that it was a friend. Before Talon, she hadn't been alone. She'd had a friend.

Talon kept her isolated to keep her focus on the mission at hand but…

She'd had a _friend_.

Several days and several small protests later, Widowmaker sent in a request to change locations. Talon's intelligence had based the target's predicted behavior on another like model, assuming the omnic thought the same as its "brother." Widowmaker knew different, but she would never completely defy orders on a stakeout and assassination. Talon's information came from a biased assumption, but Widowmaker's assessment came from observation.

Her target would be closer to a hospital or a refugee camp.

After another long day in the late October sun, Reaper responded personally.

"Change locations." A pause. "I respect your decision and consider it optimal for success."

The closest thing to a compliment she would ever receive from him.

She also requested an air drop for hygiene supplies. Widowmaker held hygiene in high esteem. It caused less stink to tip off her location as well as disallow excess DNA to be found. Her request was granted.

After a shower in the rain, Widowmaker made her way toward l'Ospedale SS. Giovanni e Paolo.


	9. The Boys Are Back In Town

_I'm sorry for the last two weeks without an update! I had some computer troubles! We're gonna be back mostly to the regular schedule now! Thank you all for your understanding and support!_

The plane ride to Florence's base made Lena twitchy. Her fingers tapped on her chronal accelerator. Her eyes shifted from Angela to Fareeha to Hana to her own lap to out the front of the plane's windshield. The plane was mostly on autopilot, per Angela's request. Lena could fly _anything_ , but Angela didn't want to push Lena too hard after the accident. She'd tried flying before and had ended up having awful flashbacks, only to come to screaming, crying, and flailing. She'd hit Angela in the face.

Flying still made her nervous after that incident, but it still felt so _right_. It felt as natural as breathing, made part of her want to laugh and burst into song, but something ran deep in her bones and whirled like an angry vortex centered exactly where the chronal accelerator rested on her chest and back. The first part of the flight made her excited… thrilled to be in the air, but as time drew on, anxiety started creeping deep in her heart. Every bit of turbulence made her heart leap into her throat. She felt as if every bump could throw her into the void.

Lena gripped the controls, ready to take the plane down when Hana tapped on her shoulder.

"Hiya. You look a little tired."

Lena gave her a blank look.

"Go back there and take a nap. I'll take us down no problem."

Hesitantly, Lena let go of the grips and nodded, throat too dry to speak. She wanted to be able to fly again. It didn't matter that years had passed. The device on her chest reminded her of the possibilities.

She sat across from Angela and Fareeha who were both "resting their eyes." Angela leaned against Fareeha's shoulder, sleeping peacefully. Fareeha sat stock still and straight as an arrow, eyes closed and breathing even. Lena could only assume that ability came from hard times as a soldier, where one had to be ready to go at a moment's notice.

Lena felt her eyes grow heavy as the craft's engine lowered its whining pitch. She was asleep in seconds, dreaming of omnic wars. Dreaming of flying apart. Dreaming of nearly dying. And as always, dreaming of Widowmaker.

The landing jostled Lena awake, and she grumbled to herself. She would have landed much smoother.

They landed in the backyard of Florence's safe house and, upon disembarking, cloaked the craft as best they could with leftover technology from Overwatch's prime. The house that served as Florence's base was much smaller than the one in Drachten, but it still served its purpose. The three rooms, one bathroom, kitchen, and living room were all big enough to move in comfortably even with the four of them.

Zarya and Mei hadn't come for more than _just_ that the space and rooms were limited, though. Zarya, growing up during war against the omnics, could never fully believe they were trustworthy or equal to humans. She didn't think they could peacefully coexist, but no one argued with her much. How could they argue when they hadn't been right there watching omnics tear apart friends and family? Lena winced. The first Omnic Crisis had been before her time, but she'd seen more than enough in school, on the Internet, and in operations against rogue omnic groups to be able to picture it well enough. She just couldn't _imagine_ how a child would feel, to have everything torn from their grasp at the drop of a hat. Lena had watched a lot of people die. But then again, so had everyone who had stood close to any war.

Overwatch agents normally wouldn't allow someone with such strong views against any group to operate within their sphere, but Zarya wouldn't actually hurt an omnic. At most, she would make an unnecessary, oftentimes insensitive, comment, but usually, she just ignored an omnic's presence wholesale. At first, her distrust had looked too similar to Talon for anyone's comfort, but Talon regarded omnics as disposable _things_. They'd killed humans and omnics alike. Zarya would hesitate a lot less at taking out an omnic than a human, but she didn't actively want to kill them. A fine distinction maybe, but Zarya detested Talon for their nearly indiscriminate, thinly veiled genocide. Hadn't that been what was done to the majority of her home? In the end, that was good enough for the remaining Overwatch agents to recruit her. They just left her out of omnic-centered missions most of the time.

Mei often stayed with her to keep her happy and to keep her company. Besides, Mei only rarely came along on combat missions. Most of her work was done on a computer or in a lab these days, barring the occasional trip to one of Overwatch's old climate stations.

Lena departed only after Angela had taken a few steps out of the craft and looked at the back of the house. All the blinds were drawn. Every drape hung over window, concealing the inside. Everyone fell into an offensive line almost simultaneously. Lena grabbed at the blaster strapped to her thigh as Fareeha pulled out a semi automatic handgun. Hana crouched slightly, ready to fight or flee, holding her own miniature blaster steady. Angela, who'd been using her caduceus as a staff, pulled it to a ready, right hand still close to her own pistol.

Fareeha decided to take the lead, assuming her natural role as offensive leader. She unlocked the back door and carefully pushed it open. Farreha went in followed by Lena, Hana, then Angela.

Lena could feel her heart racing. Being out of commission for two whole weeks had nearly driven her bonkers. Her legs felt familiarly springy. She tracked her gaze over potential places for a suspicious target to hide. The lights were off inside. Her nose twinged at something it couldn't quite identify. Fareeha crept in, the moon glinting off her silvery, strong arms and her eyes searching for a target in the dark. Lena followed, trying to keep her fingers from being directly on the trigger. She felt slightly embarrassed at how jittery from excitement she was, and knew she couldn't fully trusted to have her fingers even in the trigger housing.

Hana had just crossed the back door's threshold when Lena saw her wrinkle her nose from the corner of her eye.

"Is that…" _sniff sniff_ "...Is that cigar smoke?"

Angela huffed and sagged, barging ahead of the offensive team, and flicked on the lights just beside the entryway. "For the love of God."

Fareeha holstered her weapon, Hana laughed, and Lena felt a massive grin spread across her face.

The sweet yet acrid smell of cigars floated through the air, framing a man's hat too perfectly to be unintentional. The man's booted feet rested on the knotty pine table, and he threw a manila envelope onto the tabletop, still hiding his face and lazily drifting smoke source from view.

"I have a job for you," he drawled.

Angela slammed her caduceus firmly on the tile floor and stomped her foot. Her eyes rolled so hard that Lena almost wondered how they hadn't fallen completely out of her head. "Cut the crap, Jesse. You scared us terribly. Do you know what kind of month it's been? I ought to throw you out using just that gaudy, awful belt buckle." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "And get your damn feet off the table. We eat there."

Jesse McCree quickly dropped his feet and stood, showing his hands in a placating gesture. "Woah, there, Angela."

"Don't you _dare_ talk to me like I'm some ridiculous mare." Her eyes flashed, and Lena could see the soldier's eyes come into place. Sometimes Lena wondered why Angela didn't just pull out her pistol and teach him a lesson. She wasn't a terrible shot. In fact, she was pretty good when she needed to be.

He tipped his head to Fareeha then Lena and gave Hana a dashing smile. She turned her head away with a blushing grumble in Korean. Lena wanted to nudge Hana with her elbow for the blush, but that would have just embarrassed her too much in front of the newcomer. She'd just have to save the teasing for a bit later.

Angela stormed past Jesse and straight to her room, slamming the door.

Hana lifted an eyebrow to Lena, and Lena shot back a small look that meant, "I'll tell you later."

Fareeha greeted Jesse McCree much more warmly, embracing him firmly and giving him a few pats on the back that made him stumble. Lena giggled quietly. He was going to have bruises. "What's your business here, smuggler?"

"Aw, come on, now. You know that I don't do that stuff no more." He sat back down in his seat, pulling together his shoulder blades to try to shake the sting inevitably left over from Fareeha's gentle reminder not to mess with Angela.

Lena felt her cloudy mood part into a happier one. Jesse wasn't exactly the most gentlemanly kind of person, but he wasn't terrible. Most times, he was downright hilarious, even if a little crass. He meant well, from what Lena could tell, and she trusted him, more or less. Former Blackwatch member or not, he'd abandoned his black market stake once he realized innocent people were being hurt and that it aided Talon's purpose. Lena knew that Angela was keenly aware of McCree's value, but Lena also knew that Angela could only stand McCree for so long at one time. His affinity for dramatic entrances never seemed to help his cause.

Fareeha's smile was not disingenuous. "How have you been, Jesse?"

Lena and Hana went for the small kitchen while the two made small talk. Lena went for the kettle. Hana went for the tea. Hana quickly plugged her phone into the available outlet in the kitchen and hopped up on the laminate countertop, playing a game. Lena propped against the counter while they waited for the water to reach a boil.

There seemed to be an awkward pause between Fareeha and Jesse, and Lena decided that it was her turn to take a bullet for everyone. McCree was an awkward guy sometimes.

"Hey, McCree, what's that?" She pointed at the envelope.

The large man rubbed at his scruffy neck and sighed, cigar smoke drifting from his maw and nose like a lazy dragon. "We should probably wait for Angela to stop being so mad at me."

Fareeha gave him a pointed look and said, "I don't think she would be as angry if you hadn't scared us all."

He nodded. "I reckon that's mostly my fault, but she knows me better than anyone here. You'd think she'd really _know_ me by now." He ground out his cigar on the table's otherwise empty cigarette tray.

Fareeha's expression did not change. "She doesn't trust you as much as you trust her."

Hana didn't look up from her game, but contributed all the same. "Listen, cowboy, you must not know Angela very well."

McCree let out a short bark of laughter. Hana pulled her face closer to her phone, which made Lena smile a little more as she pulled the kettle off the burner and poured two cups worth of hot water. "Listen, little lady, I've known Angela longer than you've been alive probably."

Hana shot a deadly glare over the edge of her phone screen and placed it on the counter, sniffing the air haughtily. "I am _not_ a lady."

Lena really, fully understood Hana for a split second - a brief convergence as their minds passed through a familiar and utterly undeniable truth. A lot of Hana's actions made sense from that one phrase that Lena might have missed if she'd not spent so much time with her lately. No one took Hana seriously because they still saw her as a little girl. It was a logical truth that Lena had understood, but something struck in the middle of the tension - a deep emotional understanding for Hana's drive.

Lena saw Jesse drag a hand down his face, obviously left out of the cosmic miracle, and shake his head. "Y'all're gonna end me before we ever even get in the field."

Lena's stomach suddenly started gurgling. She could really use something to eat, but this safe house definitely wouldn't have any food until morning. It wasn't exactly used a ton. Jesse took off his hat and set it on the table, sauntering to the fridge. He did a cheesy little bow that made Lena smile and presented an opened, fully stocked fridge. Before Lena was even aware of herself, she descended upon a pack of fancy cheese slices like a hungry vulture. Recovery made her hungry, but then again, her metabolism must have gone up from actually eating instead of forgetting all the time. In fact, she had started feeling better all over.

Jesse laughed and ruffled Lena's hair familiarly like some weird, ex con, cowboy uncle who really enjoyed young people. The slight awkwardness he kept as a constant baseline felt endearing, to an extent. Then, Lena would remember that he'd been in the same league as Reyes and feel herself pull away.

Part of her felt ashamed that her trust remained so tenuous, so ephemeral, but then again, she'd trusted before and gotten hurt worse than she could have ever imagined. Talon had done that to her, and she could never find any ease in her hatred for them. In part, Jesse McCree reminded her too much of potentials for her to get close. She knew Angela's reasons for being so hot-headed around McCree, too, but he _was_ a pretty great guy to have on your side when it came to a fight.

Hana left the room with a small snack of her own and a few "good night"s, but Lena knew that she would just be sitting up all night reviewing Athena's compiled data and streamlining it into something cohesive. The little nap Hana had taken on the plane would probably last her at least a good few hours. Lena thought that maybe she should sneak into Hana's room and try to cover her up with a blanket when she finally did fall asleep. It was so drafty in this house.

After Hana left, Fareeha and Lena stood watching McCree. He looked up at them both with a cautious, nervous grin. "Come on, now. What'd I do to deserve _these_ kinds of looks?"

Fareeha crossed her gleaming arms with a smirk and looked at Lena incredulously. "He doesn't know what he did."

For a split second, Lena felt her confusion almost give everything away before she realized that Fareeha was playing a _joke_ on Jesse. A smile pulled at the right corner of Lena's mouth as she said, "Ah, love, sometimes men are just so oblivious. _I'm_ not gonna tell him."

Fareeha offered a gentle snort. "I'm not either, so I guess he'll have to figure it out on his own."

Jesse looked back and forth between the two before slumping back in his chair. "I'll never understand you people."

After a bit more banter with Fareeha and Jesse, sleeping arrangements started being discussed.

Lena, kneading her bottom lip with her teeth like overworked bread dough, chimed in, "Hey, Jesse, where do you plan on sleeping?"

The large man just shrugged. "I have a sleeping bag, so I'll probably sleep outside."

Fareeha scowled. "Listen, cowpoke, you will sleep inside like a civilized human being. There is an available couch. Times and measures may call for you to sleep on the ground as we all have, but there is a soft place for your head. You will go there."

Jesse looked up at her, a hard look in his eye that made Lena want to run. That was a dangerous look. Fareeha did not avert her gaze, staring down the man looming over her. Fareeha's strong stance did not waver, feet shoulder width apart and her arms crossed just lightly enough to strike in a moment. After several long seconds, Jesse nodded and took a step back.

"I'll find a place to crash after tonight, but I'm sticking around for this mission. I have _personal_ interest in this matter."

Lena felt a few thoughts absently cross her mind. There were only a few things that the remaining Overwatch agents all felt the same about.

There was a hit out on someone.

"Are they still going to be alive in the morning?" Lena blurted once she'd pieced it together.

He smiled, putting a finger to his nose to indicate that she was right. "Hell, doll, they'll _be_ _here_ in the morning."

Sunrise came too quickly.

Lena rolled out of bed, still wearing the clothes from the previous day. She'd been too tired to change before hitting the hay and immediately falling unconscious. She pulled the comforter off of the bed with her and shuffled out of her small room. It wasn't a bad room, but it was even more cramped and spartan than her room in Drachten. A twin bed. A window. A dresser. No closet. No mirror. No telly. One wall outlet. No curtains, only plastic blinds.

She shuffled through the living room on her way to the kitchen and noticed that McCree was no longer snoring on the couch. That godawful noise had kept her up for part of the four measly hours she'd tried to sleep.

Lena grumbled and walked into the kitchen where everyone sat - either on the counter or around the table. They all looked at the coffee pot and kettle expectantly. That was a near constant for all Overwatch agents, young and old. Nothing could be done without caffeine.

As soon as the coffee pot slowed its percolation just enough to be considered done, McCree flew into action, cup in hand. He poured the biggest, blackest cup of coffee, which looked more like motor oil than an actual beverage.

Hana went for the coffee pot too, abandoning her usual morning tea. In fact, everyone went for coffee except Lena. Coffee made her too nervous and then she froze up, shut down, and ended up having a rather difficult time functioning. She settled on her usual English Breakfast.

Angela added cream and sugar to hers, sneering at McCree. "You try _so hard_ to be a badass, yet Aleksandra's coffee is still stronger than this dishwater even with cream and sugar."

Fareeha winced after a sip, clearly gritting her teeth. "This is repulsive."

Hana gagged and poured out her coffee into the sink. She went for a cup of tea instead. "Is this the gross ass fake coffee?"

Angela nodded and sighed. "It's _chicory_. I have some _real_ coffee in the cabinet somewhere."

"Why do y'all always have to give me a ration of shit?"

Angela just smirked into her cup, dark circles under her eyes disappearing for a fraction of a second only to creep up again as if the light had never touched her cheek. Lena frowned. Ever since she'd taken Widowmaker's bullet, Angela had looked so tired. So strained. So vulnerable.

A knock on the back door saved everyone from another awkward silence that seemed to fit so well when Jesse entered their company. McCree was the first to go for the door to save his bacon, and Lena caught a wary, tired gaze aimed at his back from Angela.

"Well, shit. I didn't think y'all'd be here for at least another hour. I was about to brief everyone on the situation we've got."

A soft voice came from outside the door just out of sight from everyone in the kitchen. "Ah, I sincerely hope that we are not interrupting a good morning breakfast, then. I suppose we should have given you a warning before we came."

Hana perked up immediately and whispered, "Is that Zenyatta?"

Hana's excitement was simply contagious. "Yeah, love, it is."

"Nah, man, come on in. You might be able to tell them more than I can, since you're the one that gave me the file and all." Jesse motioned for Zenyatta to come in, trailed by none other than Genji Shimada. Only Lena noticed that Angela went a little pale and tried to hide behind her coffee mug.

Zenyatta gave a warm, delightful chuckle. "Oh, no, no. Genji gathered all of your information. I am merely the subject matter." He inclined his head deeply to Jesse. "And I am certainly aware of your affinity for dramatic presentation, hence why the envelope is in your hands."

Genji stayed a silent centurion at Zenyatta's side, inclining his head to McCree and entering the safe house with guarded posture.

Fareeha stood and greeted them, once again assuming the role as the group's natural strategic leader. Leadership for Overwatch teams really depended on who was in a group. "We welcome you both, but daylight is burning, and the task is still at hand. Let us begin with an explanation as to what brought you here, McCree."

When Jesse seemed at a loss for words, Zenyatta stepped in. "Jesse has been studying under me for several months." He noticed Jesse's discomfort and addressed him. "There is no shame in trying to overcome one's past, friend. We must all learn our own path." He turned back to Fareeha. "My path and my purpose are what bring us together this day."

Genji spoke almost as gently as Zenyatta, but his words still seemed harsh and passionate by comparison. "I have intercepted intelligence that a Talon agents waits in Florence, ready to assassinate Sensei. The assassin knows his habits and acts almost of their own free will. I would have anticipated that they would be waiting at the Piazza San Marco, where the incident took place nearly a week ago, but the assassin is moving."

Lena's heart raced. There was only one assassin that Talon would entrust with this kind of mission. She'd taken out Zenyatta's brother, so why shouldn't she take him out also? She tried not to act too eager. Surely Angela would make her sit this one out but… Angela had brought Lena on purpose. She could have just told Lena to stay back with Winston, Zarya, and Mei, but she hadn't. She'd suggested Lena join the trip like a peace offering. She couldn't have known that Widowmaker would be entangled in this web, could she? Could she have known the objective before they'd even arrived?

It was possible. Winston was nominally their ultimate leader, but he didn't want that position. Mostly, he deferred to Angela. He gave no mission without first consulting her. That meant… she'd probably known about the hit on Zenyatta before flying all the way out to Florence. What's more is that she probably knew about Widowmaker's involvement before ever inviting Lena.

A glimmer of something passed through Lena's body as ephemeral and intangible as a ghost. Hope.

Zenyatta inclined his head toward Lena as if sensing the faint traces of anticipation and joy. No one else seemed to notice. She offered a soft smile in return.

Genji continued. "I believe that the assassin is the creature known as the Widowmaker, but I do not want to kill her, despite her intentions for my… for our friend and teacher." His covered face shielded his emotions from the world, but Lena could almost feel embarrassment radiating off of him.

Hana cocked her head to one side after taking a rather large gulp of tea and swallowing. "Why can't Genji just take care of you?"

Genji shifted uncomfortably, and Zenyatta's posture settled into what seemed to be a smile. Sometimes it was difficult to tell, since he wasn't exactly human and couldn't really move his facial features. "I suppose it would be critical to mission success to provide you with the most information that I am capable of giving. Genji is no longer my student, seeing that he now teaches me as much as I teach him. We are… mutually benefitting from one another's presence on a personal level, so that I may no longer call him my student."

Lena's eyebrows lifted, and Hana caught on just as fast. "Sssooo… you guys are dating."

Zenyatta paused a thoughtful moment and responded, "Yes, in short."

"Sensei, no!" Genji's full on embarrassment hit the surrounding Overwatch family like a flood.

Everyone erupted into much needed laughter.

Even Zenyatta chuckled, placing a comforting hand on Genji's shoulder. "But they _must_ know why we need them and why you alone cannot defend me. Your personal investment may interfere with the mission's success if not shared with the family that helps us."

Lena smiled at that. Family. Ultimately, that's what they were, wasn't it? Zenyatta might be the third cousin thrice removed, and Genji might be the relative of a distant relative these days, since he didn't really have a lot of investment in Overwatch after the Shimada clan was brought down, but either way… They were still part of a wacky family. A family that, Lena realized, was a lot bigger than it seemed, even with extenuating circumstances.

Angela finally spoke, having stayed silent until this moment. "It seems that we will need to eat a proper brunch before going spider hunting." She glanced at Lena subtly. "We _all_ need to get ready for this one. I don't know if she'll go easy on us this time or not, but we most certainly will not have the luxury of going easy on her."

Lena's heart flipped. She wasn't going to screw this up. Not this time.

As Lena was suiting up in the privacy of her room, there was a knock on her door. "Just a sec!" she called.

The knocker came in anyway.

"Christ, Angela, I'm still in m'knickers!" Lena turned away from the door and realized that wouldn't help if Angela decided to make fun of her underwear, which was, unfortunately, missing most of the cheek cover. "Why don't these doors have bloody _locks_?"

"Calm down, Lena. I've seen everyone naked more than once, and I've done your laundry plenty. Plus, I already happen to know that you only wear your nicest underwear for missions with Widowmaker. Your thong is not a revelation."

Lena went bright red and opened her mouth to protest, but Angela continued before she could get a word out.

"We need to talk. I'm not exactly concerned with your state of undress." She paused. "Do you need help getting into that?"

Lena blushed and stumbled back into her bed, left leg smarting despite the rapid healing that had been done to it. Angela had lengthened the treatments and upped the treatment frequency to heal it faster, but it still wasn't completely healed. Lena could run... but not for long. Now that Lena thought about it, the effort she was putting into taking care of Lena was probably why Angela looked like she could sleep for about a year.

"Lena, you could do irreparable damage to your leg if you push yourself too hard." Angela gently pulled the spandex around the healing wound and adjusted it like she'd done this kind of thing a thousand times. A thousand was probably an underestimate.

"I'll be good, mum. I promise." Lena held up her hand in a ridiculous Scouts Honor salute.

Angela cringed and helped Lena pull the top up over her torso. "Please don't say that. Last time you said that, you came home shot and in shock."

Lena giggled and shifted in her spandex comfortably. Fitted like a glove. "Aw, come on now. I really _mean_ it this time. Besides, she loves playing hard to get." Angela rolled her eyes and stood there for a minute while Lena finagled around her chronal accelerator deftly. Lena looked up and knocked on it, grinning. "And _I_ love playing the target with a big blue light on her chest."

Angela snorted and pinched the bridge of her nose. She said nothing.

Lena thought that maybe now wasn't the time for jokes, despite this being the first time in a while that she felt up to it. "Ang, what's bothering you?" She paused and went over to Angela who'd sat on the corner of the bed. "Is it seeing McCree again?" She gasped theatrically. "Did he make a move on you? If he did, and there's anything left from Fareeha pounding on him, I call second dibs on a round of fisticuffs." She put up her fists to the point where they tilted backwards and moved in a circular motion, like some old black and white film with a scrappy, pot-bellied, middle aged man raring for a fight.

Angela visibly fought a smile, but the laughter cracked her facade. "No, no. Nothing like that." She sighed and looked over at Lena, warm eyes seeming more tired than even before. "I just… I'm worried about everyone. I'm worried about you. I… Seeing Jesse… I'm glad he's doing better with Zenyatta." She smiled again, eyes glittering keenly. "I'm glad Genji is doing better with Zenyatta."

The light bulb pinged on so hard that Lena was surprised Angela couldn't see it. "You're worried about how they're reacting to _you_."

Angela nodded wearily.

"Listen, Ang. If they have a problem at all, me and two other people will show them what's what, alright? I mean, Fareeha can probably do the most damage even without weapons but." Lena shrugged, trying to be supportive the way that others had been for her. "We're here, and uh. We love you. You're family."

Angela squeezed Lena's right knee and kissed her hair. "I knew I could count on you. Now, come on. Jesse's about to go over strategy."


	10. Do You Wanna Start A War

After a few minutes of arguing, all the remaining Overwatch agents and affiliates finagled around a plan. They all loaded up in the craft and started moving toward the city, landing under a cloaking device in an otherwise empty park.

What everything boiled down to was that Zenyatta felt as if his purpose and path had led him to help the victims of the previous week's attack. Nothing would keep him from going to the l'Ospedale SS. Giovanni e Paolo, which gave residence to most of the significantly injured from the attacks - humans and omnics alike. Genji and Zenyatta had given the Overwatch crew the needed information in order to keep Zenyatta from suffering a fate similar to his brother's. Hana had asked why he didn't just sit tight in the safe house until it all blew over, but Zenyatta had just shaken his head and said that he couldn't sit idly by while so many suffered. And so the post-Overwatch protection task force had formed.

More than anything, Zenyatta didn't want anyone else to get hurt. He knew as well as anyone that more damage could be done, especially considering what had already happened. Tensions were running high in Venice. Whispers slithered between the lines of Hana's intelligence that said the Italian government had been trying to shut down protests supporting omnic rights, and not doing anything to discourage areas crawling with anti-omnic crime and protest. The preexisting powderkeg would make Zenyatta an appealing target for normies, as well as for the infamous Widowmaker.

The stakes felt high for good reason.

They were.

On the short flight, Hana settled into her persona to broadcast a short stream to her viewers, careful to keep the camera mostly aimed away from other agents. Despite how much they loathed it, they were all still vigilante outlaws - not just McCree. Zenyatta clasped hands with Angela, apologizing for not personally addressing her sooner. He'd looked over at Lena and Hana, who jostled each other around, and smiled at them. Hana flipped the camera around on her phone and said, "Say 'hey' for all the good people on the web!"

Better yet, Zenyatta held up a peace sign. Lena felt a laugh she fought to contain escape in a terrible snort, and she doubled over, cackling. It felt good. It felt natural. Zenyatta also seemed pleased, from what Lena could tell. His calming presence brought out the best in everyone, or maybe her changing state of mind just made laughing easier. Either way, she would take it.

Upon departing the gardens and forming their tactical groups, Lena smiled back at her team. She had a good feeling about this mission.

Fareeha scooped Lena up as she would a small child and jetted off toward the roof of the nearest building. She gently set Lena on her feet and offered her armored arm as a stabilizer while Lena got her footing. Lena scanned the area and watched as McCree, Hana in her meka, Angela, and Genji surrounded Zenyatta in a loose diamond, Hana taking the point and Angela taking up the rear.

Lena looked around and down at the piazza below where several peaceful protesters chanted and yelled for peace, frequently shouting, "Stop killing us" and "We didn't start your war." Her heart twisted for them. They didn't deserve this. This wasn't an all out war on paper, but this was a war in and of itself. It never stopped. The hatred. The conflict. It probably wouldn't stop any time soon, even if Talon hadn't been standing in the background fanning the flames.

Police officers were scattered throughout the piazza, dressed as if expecting violence to break out. Lena felt her shoulders and neck tighten. That did not bode well for the tension that had settled over the city like winter's first frost.

Lena's comm burbled in her ear.

"Man, all these police guys are makin' me more nervous than a rattlesnake in a room full of creaky rockers," breathed McCree.

The sneer in Angela's voice felt tangible. "That's not even a _saying_."

A low chuckle. Still McCree. "It _is_ a saying because I just said it."

Lena could hear Hana chittering to her followers on her stream, explaining the gist of their purpose in Venice, interrupted by, "Oh, and _thank you_ to Thomas from Wyoming for your two hundred dollar donation!" Wily Hana. Always making her own through missions.

Fareeha looked down at Lena, raised her pistol - Lena wasn't sure how well she could have used a magnum that size with both hands, but Fareeha held it like it was nothing - and glanced down the iron sights. She looked like a foreign goddess in the morning light - metal beads glinting in the sun and her bronze skin gleaming. Lena felt herself blush and looked away quickly, forcing herself to focus on the mission at hand. She pointed toward the massive basilica.

"Do you think we should look over there to see if we were right about her?" She swallowed awkwardly. She didn't rightly want to speak the assassin's name and set anyone off. Angela was already breathing down her neck with a chaperone. A little guilt crept into the back of Lena's mind. She genuinely liked Fareeha, but she _didn't_ like having a babysitter.

Fareeha nodded once in a quick, silent affirmative. Lena allowed herself to be scooped up once more as they floated to the other rooftop. She wanted to save every ounce of energy she could for the fight. They weren't there for a fight, but… Something told her that there would be more than any of them bargained for in this day.

The comm whispered in their ears again. Hana this time. "Hey, hey, Jesse."

"Dear God, what is it, ?"

"Jesse… Am I your favorite?"

"My favorite what?"

"Am I your favorite deputy?"

A few laughs came over the line with a sigh from McCree. At the moment, everything was manageable. Everyone could laugh, even if shoulders were a little tense. Lena worried her lip again. Maybe she was just fretting too much… Or hoping for too much. She _wanted_ to run into Widowmaker. She _wanted_ to see that she was okay. She _wanted_ to be able to miraculously convince her that Talon was bad and that Overwatch was good but…

"Tracer, what do you see?"

Lena tuned out the murmurings from Hana to her followers and looked around the roof. She blinked around twice, taking quick stock, and settled in the western corner with a smile. Crumbs littered the corner and several different plates from several restaurants sat stacked several deep, stolen teacups spread out in an abstract, but very intentional, pattern. Lena stooped down to pick up a plate with a half eaten apple pie. It had started to stink, but that would still be worth the joke.

Her mouth quirked up before she even realized it. "Hey, Pharah, what do spiders eat?"

Fareeha put a hand to her right ear, adjusting her comm. "What? Why do you ask? Is that helping?"

Lena put up her hands. "Just humor me, love."

"Spiders usually eat insects caught in their web, but some have been known to eat birds."

Lena smiled, picked up the half eaten pie by the dainty, floral plate, and lifted it just over the ledge that expertly hid it from view. "Cuz it looks like we've got one with a sweet tooth."

Fareeha's eyes widened. "How did she…"

Lena shrugged, that warm feeling she'd been having creeping back into her chest and investing in prime real estate. "I have a feeling that she's coming back." _Amélie was coming back._

The crew made their way through the streets and over rooftops, poking at one another over the comms in their ears and trying to lighten the mood. The trip took twice as long as it was meant to. Zenyatta offered peaceful, kind words to protesters he encountered that addressed him, friendly and hostile alike. Fareeha watched hard when he spoke to any crowd. Lena could understand that, though. Sometimes, it was just easier to spot a threat if you had a bird's eye view.

Zenyatta wasn't like Mondatta. Zenyatta believed that small acts of kindness, such as helping the wounded and healing the sick-hearted, would lead to greater good down the line; that had clashed somewhat with Mondatta's belief that trying to address the people's beliefs on a large scale was the best way to bring about social change. Lena had been greatly inspired by Mondatta's work, and she was surprised at how similar Zenyatta's approach today seemed to his brother's philosophy. Still, she thought as she watched the gentle omnic embrace a crying young mother, maybe it shouldn't have been so shocking. They were still brothers, after all.

The crowd started thickening, pushing closer to the hospital. Shouting and angry voices filling the air like a wasp's nest swarming and buzzing violently to war. A shiver ran down Lena's spine as cold as a delicate, frozen layer of ice blanketing a lake. The real fight would be down there. If she could see it, she knew Fareeha could see the rows of police officers and armed protesters as well.

Fareeha looked over at Lena warily. "They're going to have their hands full down there. I need to go lighten their burden." She forced the comm further in her ear. Lena knew it was because her hearing wasn't nearly as good on that side, but Fareeha couldn't sacrifice being unable to hear approaching enemies with her other ear. "What do you think?"

Angela's tight voice came over the line, muffled by static. "Yes. We lost sight of Jesse." She sounded tired. "I don't know where that useless cowboy has gone, but you'll do more good down here, I think. It's getting rough."

Fareeha looked over at Lena. "Did you catch that? The static…"

Sometimes the tailored hearing aid-comm she wore picked up even more static. "McCree is missing, things are getting rough, and your girlfriend needs you."

Fareeha's brown skin around her cheeks deepened in a blush, and she nodded, taking off like some less tragic Iron Giant. Lena watched her go before there was a whispering gloom tugging at the corners of her mind. She still had a bum leg and couldn't run very well.

She checked her chronal accelerator and sighed. The device that kept her rooted in this world ran mostly along the lines of the laws of inertia. She could move from a fixed point to another point, but the power required to go from a full stop to another full stop required a lot of energy from the device, which made travel slower. The faster she could run and the farther that she could jump on her own would help the device allow her to travel faster and farther using a minimal amount of the chronal accelerator's power. Even then, the power wore down, but if she could squeeze out as much time as possible, maybe she could accomplish more. Maybe she could help more. Maybe she could _be_ more. Enclosed spaces, like the museum where Widowmaker and Reaper had tried to steal Doomfist's Glove, disallowed prolonged use of her device and required more than a few seconds to recharge. It was hard to get the necessary momentum for an easy jump in a place like that. Open spaces allowed her to run and jump and not have to slow down.

Lena looked around, the midday air feeling thick and heavy - muggy - despite the coolness of October drying the beading sweat on her forehead. Her leg was starting back with its dull aching. She sat on the edge of a building and pulled off her visor, checking her hair in the reflection.

"Tracer, what are you doing? Are you _primping_?" Hana's incredulous voice.

Lena laughed jovially. "That word makes you sound like you're an eighty-year-old woman. My dear old Nana Hana."

Genji grunted loudly as Fareeha took up McCree's missing spot. "Can we focus more on the task instead of Tracer's grooming habits?"

Lena laughed again. It felt a little more strained than she intended. She could feel the mask sliding back on as the pressure in her insides built like a slowly heating kettle.

 _She_ had to be close by.

That's when Lena saw it. Saw _her_.

Lena didn't see anything but a flash of her unnaturally pale skin. The rooftop to rooftop action lasted for blocks and blocks, crossing small streams. And there she was, situated on the southeast corner of the Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo, pointed at the small pavilion below. Despite the slope of the roof, she swirled and dipped and pranced - her weapon abandoned on the southeasternmost corner, primed and ready, from the looks of it. But there it was. Abandoned.

And the Widowmaker was dancing.

For a moment, Lena almost couldn't process it. It was… absurd, in a way. The world's deadliest assassin in a purple catsuit, twirling alone on a roof. _She must really think no one could see her,_ Lena thought, and for the most part, she was right; Lena had been standing up on one of the tallest buildings in the area; anywhere else, and Widowmaker would have been safely out of sight. With a quiet "Ha!" Lena started moving, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, careful to take the brunt of her landings on her springy good leg, pushing how fast she thought she could move.

A minute or so later, she had a better view as she leapt and ran and blinked over sheer drops. She could see Widowmaker's face, now, the expression of…. not bliss, exactly, but… perhaps satisfaction written across her features. The movements were familiar. Had she seen this exact dance before…? Her mind drifted. Lena could almost see the baby blue tutu she'd been wearing and the feathered shell covering her torso, with the sunlight acting as the spotlight, complete with the massive cathedral's sloping stage. It took a moment for Lena to remember that she'd been running and jumping across rooftops and she just… stopped right beside the bell tower. Watching.

With each spin, Lena watched the Widowmaker transform further and further into Amélie. Her beautiful eyes were closed, delicate brow furrowed in concentration. Lena's heart skipped several beats, and she almost swore she died and had gone to a much better place. A dainty sheen of sweat had settled on the pale smoothness of Widowmaker's face and a faint, nearly imperceptible flush lit her cheeks.

The half reverie tinted her mind and gave way to a flood of memories of watching Amélie paint a stage with her emotions. Amélie Lacroix danced on a stage for no one. She danced for herself.

Lena felt the bottom of her stomach fall out as her foot slipped on a roof shingle, the sound of the rubber sole on the gravel shingle like a thousand tiny gunshots. Widowmaker's eyes snapped open and locked onto Lena's. It was not the cold look that Lena steeled her nerves for but a look that Lena knew well.

Winston had shown Lena the Slipstream video when the accident had happened. Lena insisted on seeing where the problem occurred, to convince Winston that it hadn't been anyone else's fault but her own, but… the real fault lay within the equipment itself. Lena saw the look on her own face shift from tranquil ease to absolute, wide eyed, stricken horror, and that was the look on the Widowmaker's face. Horror. Then uncertainty. Then anguish which morphed into a terrible, terrible smile.

Just like that, Amélie Lacroix vanished and Widowmaker took focus once more.

The fear that had stayed dormant since the shot she'd taken resurfaced again, pulsing in her chest as hard as the healing wound on her left leg.

Widowmaker motioned for Lena to come her way and presented her hands open, palms up. No weapon in hand, but that didn't mean she didn't have a pistol in a holster somewhere. Lena could snatch out her blasters and be ready for an attack, but something prevented her from doing just that. Instead, she walked to Widowmaker in a similar fashion as she stood - palms open and hands out to her side, but halfway to her destination, she clicked off her comm. She'd get an earful from everyone else later.

She closed the gap as much as she dared, leaving about ten feet between her and Widowmaker. "Hey, Widowmaker, fancy meeting you here."

The Widowmaker, Talon's prized assassin, narrowed her beautiful golden eyes. "If I didn't know any better, chérie, I would think you were following me." The corner of her mouth quirked up in the ghost of a smile. "Lena, why are you here?"

Lena's insides went cold. Widowmaker had used her name. Her first name. That was the first part of the inquiry that hit. The second part made everything jitter and shake was that Widowmaker's question did not sound like her usual taunt but sounded genuinely curious.

"I'm here to crash your party, love." Lena's mouth felt dry, but her voice didn't break. "Seems like you've been having a bit of a tea party on the other roof without inviting me. That's a bit rude, you know. After all we've been through together!"

Widowmaker lowered her hands, and Lena went to her blasters, pulling them up faster than anyone could blink, thanks to her gift of accelerated movement. Widowmaker didn't freeze, exactly, but she did halt her movement. They stood that way for a moment, before her voice took back on its icy chill. "I mean you no immediate harm, Lena Oxton, but if you shoot at me, I will not send you another warning shot." She twitched her unnaturally blue index finger toward Lena's left leg. It was nearly imperceptible, but Lena caught the movement, which for Widowmaker, was more of a sweeping gesture.

"I will ask you again, _Tracer_." Lena's codename felt like a swift stab to the heart. "Why are you here?"

A thudding in Lena's chest clogged her throat, like phlegm when you have a chest cold. She wanted to scream at Widowmaker. She wanted to scream for Amélie. She wanted her friend back. Her soft words came out in a broken whisper. "I'm trying to stop you from killing another of my friends."

Widowmaker's eyes gleamed with something that looked like pleasure mixed with pain. Lena wanted to look away from such a sexual leer, but her eyes stayed locked on Widowmaker's. A meaningless, absent thought flickered to life in Lena's mind. Was that how Amélie would have looked entangled with her? Was that the look Lena would have seen above her? That fiendish smile looking down at her?

Lena shook her head aggressively trying to clear her thoughts. "I want to stop you from making yourself a bigger enemy to my friends than you already are."

Widowmaker sneered, anger flashing in her usually calm and calculating eyes. Something had changed from the last time she'd seen Widowmaker. Emotion danced in her eyes and sparkled on her high cheekbones. Her regal forehead wrinkled with the snarl that contorted her lips. "I am _your_ enemy, too, foolish child."

So much emotion from someone so cold. No - someone _made_ into someone so cold.

"You don't have to be my enemy, Am- Widowmaker." That violence bubbled up in her chest again. She shouldn't _have_ to change the way she spoke. She shouldn't _have_ to change her words. A flash of dark, endless space took place of her anger, making her stagger back and gasp for air.

"Lena," The Widowmaker's tone was sarcastic and mocking this time. "Lena, do you know that I remember killing many of your friends?" She laughed that hideously mocking laugh. "I know one hurt you more than the others. I know you feel _responsible_ for him."

The hit fell hard on Lena, and tears almost jumped from her eyes completely. Instead, they fell silently. The waterworks felt so sudden, but so final - almost like Lena knew that this had been bound to happen at some point. Why…

Amélie's voice - No - The Widowmaker's voice froze the blood in Lena's veins. She backed closer to her rifle and the growing sounds in the plaza below. Lena, despite her better judgement, followed. She felt pulled. She felt pulled along to the purring rage in Widowmaker's voice."I remember it, you know. Oh, I remember the rush." Widowmaker turned Lena around in a slow, 180 degree circle. Lena felt as though she'd been turned to stone, barely able to move. Widowmaker's unblinking eyes locked with Lena's, which spilled over with tears. She didn't want to hear this.

"Please…" Lena's voice was a simple whimper through the tears.

Widowmaker's shining eyes flashed along with her perfectly white teeth. "I woke beside him knowing what must be done. My first kill. I went into that terribly overdone kitchen and pulled out that great, big knife in the butcher's block." She seemed to float in Lena's blurred vision - the portrait of deadly grace. She stepped forward and leaned into Lena, so close that Lena could feel the whispers of Widowmaker's lips on her ear. "I drove that forsaken thing into his chest. I did it again and again and again. He woke up on the first stab, you know, but he couldn't even struggle. He bled onto my hands. His hot blood stained my hands for days. Talon showed me how to kill him, so I did. That's when I was _born_ , Lena. That's when I became _me_. I felt so… elated. I felt so in control, Lena." Widowmaker's breathing came harder and harder. Lena felt Widowmaker lean even closer take a shaky, rasping breath with her lips directly on Lena's skin. "He looked up at me and I laughed at him. I-" Something unusually hot and terribly wet trickled down Lena's neck. "I heard him say something. I don't-" It sounded like she choked on something, and Lena turned slightly, pulling away from the magnetic lure of Widowmaker's presence.

Widowmaker covered her mouth and had that same horrified look on her face as when Lena caught her dancing. Lena's heart skipped, and Widowmaker clutched her chest, face contorting in agony. "Wh-" Tears fell from her eyes. "I don't remember." She choked on another sob. "His name…"

Lena, who had not moved, reached with careful, hesitant hands toward Widowmaker's hunched shoulders. Her skin was so cold even through her spandex. "His name was Gérard." Lena kept her voice gentle through her own tears. "He was your husband."

Widowmaker pushed her away feebly, and Lena's heart panged. "No… no. I have no husband."

Lena felt her voice grow increasingly urgent. "Talon took him from you, and make _you_ do it."

Widowmaker shook her head harder and tottered back away from Lena, breaking their contact. "Talon gave me a target. He was an enemy of Talon. He had to be eradicated." It sounded like a hollow, recorded speech to Lena's ears, and she wondered if Widowmaker could hear it too. "Why would they do that?" She responded to herself before she could answer, clenching her eyes shut and having tears flow over even more. "It is not my job to ask questions." She took a sharp breath and darted past Lena. She picked up her gun. "It is my job to shoot."

The rising voices suddenly hit Lena's ears in a roar. She hadn't noticed them getting louder until it was probably too late.

"Amélie!" She reached out for Widowmaker who was too far to reach.

Lena tried to run, but the exhaustion from transporting herself from roof to roof finally caught up with her. She faceplanted, searing horrible pain lighting her leg on fire. She screamed, probably. Everything happened too fast.

Lena fell and screamed. Her unused earbud clacked against her chest. Widowmaker pulled her gun to her shoulder to take her shot, activating her visor. Lena screamed again. She screamed for Amélie. Desperation. She screamed at Widowmaker. Visceral fury. Despair and anguish clashed against the building hope in her chest.

A blur came from behind a corner on the roof.

Everything went from super-accelerated from the adrenaline rush to slow motion. McCree sidestepped the distraught Widowmaker and swept his booted foot at her ankles, catching her off guard and causing her to clatter to the ground along with her gun. She slammed down hard, catching herself on her hands and knees. In a single motion, Jesse McCree unholstered his weapon and gracefully pointed it at the base of Widowmaker's skull. He cocked back the hammer and let out a smoky breath through his nostrils.

Widowmaker's amber eyes went wide and filled, once more, with tears. The same pained expression flickered across her face but did not stay. Lena watched the tears flow but the expression fade back into that familiar resolute mask. Lena felt herself scrambling toward Amélie's direction, leg screaming. She could hardly feel other than the fear pushing her closer to Amélie. This was the closest she'd been. She wasn't going to lose her now.

"Jesse! Don't pull that trigger!" Lena's vocal cords protested from the raw vitriol boiling in her blood. She would not let this happen. Flashes of memory came back to her.

At first, she'd been happy to see him at the safehouse. It had been so long.

But… she was beginning to remember why it was best if they weren't around each other.

Jesse McCree, Blackwatch agent, looked down at Lena, and she could see the cold, flat eyes of a killer. She'd seen those eyes trained on her before. "I don't have a problem taking out this target. Put in your fucking earbud, Oxton. 'Fore I start wondering what you were doing up here with this _thing._ "

Widowmaker's breathing still came out hard. Lena pushed herself up and pushed in her earbud. Static-filled yelling poured from the line. The protesters. The police. Clashing.

McCree put his finger in the trigger housing, and Lena knew it was not a bluff. He had no qualms about an execution. "Tell me why I should let _it_ live."

Lena clambered. "She remembers." She all but screamed.

Widowmaker rolled onto her back and looked down McCree's gun and to his grim face. "I cannot give you an emotional reason."

He narrowed his eyes and looked back at Lena. "Do better."

Lena was at a loss. That was it. She failed. And now she would see Amélie's brains plastered on a cathedral roof.

"Widowmaker, do you remember going with me to pick strawberries? We went too early and they were all green." Lena's skittering heart almost prevented her from speaking. Hope. Hope again. "We-"

Amélie's placid facade cracked momentarily. "That was _real_."

Lena nodded.

Jesse pushed harder onto the base of Widowmaker's skull. "Give me _evidence_." He shifted the gun and shot close enough to Widowmaker's head to graze her ear. Pale blood spattered droplets on the roof. "Stop fucking around. Give me _answers_."

Widowmaker visibly ground her teeth. "If… if you don't let me do this, you will never have the information that you need."

McCree grunted in acknowledgement and to urge her on.

"If I don't get a shot on Tekhartha Zenyatta, Talon will kill me. If Talon kills me, my knowledge dies with me. If _you_ kill me, information that could change the tides will _also_ die with me."

McCree nudged her with the toe of his shoe. Lena collapsed helplessly, too fatigued to hold herself up. "Please," Lena begged.

"If you don't let me get a shot off on Tekhartha Zenyatta, all the information I have will die with me once I get back to base," Widowmaker reiterated.

Zenyatta's calm voice burbled in the static filled comm line in their ears. "I hear the predicament. I trust the Widowmaker."

Jesse reeled away and started yelling into the comm. Lena reached out with a pained whisper. "Please, Amélie… Please."

Widowmaker, with all her grace and poise, scooped up the rifle and clicked down her visor, obscuring her tear stained face.

The lovely Widowmaker, in her beautiful sadness.

The fearsome Widowmaker, beginning to feel.

The deadly Widowmaker, trusted by only two...

 _Bang._

 _Bang._

 _Bang._


	11. This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race

The next minute dragged on for a thousand years and passed in the blink of an eye. Everything that happened, happened quickly, but as Lena watched, she was utterly powerless to act.

The dead silence created by the sound vacuum after the shots was like a cheesy movie effect, where all the outside noise sucked back in to fill the void. The clamor of gunshots, angry voices, and wailing crashed around Lena's ears. Her blurry eyes never wavered from the graceful, lithe woman before her, and she saw the moment that Widowmaker turned back into Amélie. The high powered rifle fell from her hands and clattered on the roof. Her delicate, pale fingers covered her mouth in wide-eyed horror, and she began trembling. Her whisper carried over the noise to Lena's ears. Lena just assumed it was from their time together, before everything went to hell - that this was _Amélie's_ voice and not Widowmaker's. The cruel edge had gone. In its place, a gentle horrified voice in the middle of a warzone. One more victim.

"Gérard…" Tears welled up in her eyes again, but Lena caught a movement.

"No! Zenyatta!" An anguished yell. Another gun clattered loudly to the ground, and a hulking man with a robotic prosthetic charged toward Amélie. Why had McCree dropped his revolver?

McCree drove Amélie into the ground with an anticlimactic thump, the skin of her throat colliding with his metal arm. She let out a strangled gasp but did not fight back. The Widowmaker's mask slipped back onto her face, stealing away the subtle warmth in her eyes and erasing the delicate emotions on her face. The marble mask slid into place and challenged the man above her, who loomed large over her, ready to strike with his metal hand.

Lena cried out again, tears streaming down her face. She didn't even know if what she screamed could have been considered words. She couldn't bear to watch, but she couldn't tear her eyes away. She'd known as well as any that Jesse McCree had a terrible, terrible streak running just below his casual and amiable demeanor. He was a hard man with an unforgiving coldness that he could conceal, and that made him the most terrifying member of Blackwatch, to Lena. The others, from what she knew, couldn't hold their rage and were completely driven by their emotions. McCree only let out that rage when he deemed it appropriate.

That's what made him terrifying.

Anger did not control him unless he allowed it.

Oh, God, did she know better than anyone...

And right now, he relied on his cold hard instinct, fueled by rage.

A heavy _crack_ cut through the commotion as McCree's metal fist took Widowmaker hard on the jaw. She grunted, but still her face lacked emotion, lacked any sign of pain or fear. McCree hit her again, and again, and on the fourth blow, something crunched as if he'd punched a bag of pretzels, and blood fountained up from Widowmaker's nose. In a haze, Lena wondered if this was why McCree wore so much red; to hide the blood of his enemies. It splattered all up his front, his prosthetic fist gleaming a bright crimson in the glinting sunlight.

His fist slammed into Widowmaker's cheek again, and the blood splashed up onto his face like some kind of gruesome war paint. Heavy purple and black bruises were already beginning to form on her face, underneath the hideous mask of pouring blood, but still her face was as if carved from stone, as if every fiber of her being were dedicated to refusing to give the man beating her the slightest bit of satisfaction.

Lena had thought that McCree would at least spare her out of that bullshit chivalry he claimed, but it seemed that, too, was just a part of an elaborate act. But… didn't she already know that? She did. He'd turned into an animal in that moment, hitting her over and over with his metal fist, and watching him, Lena suddenly became afraid for her own life… again.

Her throat felt like she'd swallowed thousands of shards of glass, and her stomach followed, those shards turning into growing stalactites of ice, creeping throughout her entire body. _He was killing Amélie._ If he wouldn't stop at a dead Widowmaker, what would stop him from killing her too?

The cacophony below rang out around the rooftop like jeering voices from a boxing match crowd - like the world was laughing at this close quarters combat and pain. The voices were angry, and the sound of glass breaking drifted up to the rooftop. Something was happening down there. Something very bad. But how could it be worse than what was happening up here?

Lena shook her head and shoved herself up, exhaustion weighing her limbs down like lead weights. The burning ache of overexertion stole her breath straight from her lungs, but she strove to push herself further up until she rested on her palms and knees, sweat dripping from her forehead and pooling on her lower back. She lifted her head despite the tendons in her neck feeling like moorings connecting her chin to her chest.

Jesse McCree landed another blow to the side of Widowmakers head. Her eyes were fluttering now, one nearly swollen shut and black from the vicious attack. She was losing consciousness, and frankly, Lena was surprised that she was still _alive._ Even if she were able to bring herself to her feet and to push McCree off of her, would the Widowmaker survive? Or would her skull have been pulped into jelly, her brain damaged beyond repair? Was she bleeding in her head? There were some things not even Angela could fix. Another blow, and one of Widowmaker's front teeth shattered. She halfheartedly spit it up into the face of her attacker, which only seemed to make him angrier.

His face was twisted into a monstrous image of hate and anger that Lena would never have expected to see on his gentle visage. Pure vitriol. Lena was almost sure that she'd once seen a nature show where a Asiatic black bear batted around some smaller prey, which looked startlingly similar to the scene before her. Another crack. Another. Widowmaker's eyes were closed now, her breathing shallow. Blood had pooled around her head, sticking in her hair, painting the front of her catsuit.

A soft golden glow fell over them all, but Lena's head could look up no further. Grief wracked her body just as much as the pain and exhaustion. She'd gone so far to catch Amélie - to _protect_ her. But for what if it just ended here?

"Jesse, that's enough." Angela's stern voice stopped McCree's beatings more than any physical force ever could.

His head whipped up, his eyes wild, breathing hard. Blood dropped from his closed hand. His hat had fallen from his hair at some point during the beating.

Lena blinked, not quite registering what was going on. Guilt and terror and anger all raged within her. "Angela…?"

"I told you to _obtain_ her, not _kill_ her, you stupid man." Widowmaker's unconscious head lolled as McCree stood and gave her a firm shove with his boot. Was she in danger of choking on her own blood? "Though… I cannot blame you after events unfolded this way."

Her voice turned colder than a winter storm as she appeared in Lena's peripheral vision, glaring coldly down at her in a way Lena had rarely seen. "I knew _you_ would find her and lead him to her, but now our trusted ally is certainly out of commission until we can _fix_ him."

 _This was a set-up?_ Lena's vision shimmered with tears. "Angela… I didn't mean to… I just thought…" Amélie could be saved. She was _so close_. Why couldn't anyone else see what she saw…?

She saw the shadow of Angela shaking her head. "Lena…" She sounded… disappointed. And somehow, that hurt worst of all.

Lena settled back onto her knees, wrapped her shaking arms around her chest, and sobbed. She couldn't take her eyes from Widowmaker's bleeding, motionless form.

Angela started muttering in her native tongue, guiding McCree away with a gentle touch on his shoulder. Lena collapsed at that moment, gravel biting into her elbows and cheek. It was like the final nail in her coffin - to see two people act like enemies and then become allies over Widowmaker's body. Her grief became too much to hold on her shoulders.

Fareeha appeared on the roof next, brown eyes locking on Widowmaker's limp, maimed form and growing large with horror. She subconsciously lifted her prosthetic hand to her slightly open mouth as if to stuff back any repulsed or frightened sound that might escape. Her eyes narrowed as she tore them from the gory scene and locked onto Angela's back.

"Angela Ziegler." Fareeha's voice turned hard as stone and unwavering.

Angela spun in a slow circle, her expression impassive.

Fareeha pointed to Widowmaker's unconscious body. " _This_ is not how we treat even our enemies, Angela. We are _not_ _**them**_."

Angela's expression did not change nor did her posture. She stared up at Fareeha in an implacable challenge. Angela Ziegler, soldier and surgeon, did not speak. Lena could see that this had been a carefully calculated measure - a surgical procedure with a mediocre outcome rather than her usual shining precision.

McCree, meanwhile, had stalked off to the edge of the roof again, resting his hands - bloodied and unbloodied - as he gazed down at the crowd. His face was strangely neutral, despite the blood in his beard; he looked almost as if he were simply passing the time looking out at a pretty view, rather than a man who had just nearly beaten someone else to death with all the brutality of a wild animal. He'd picked up his revolver at some point, and it rested comfortably in its holster.

"You have done this to her, indirectly or directly." Fareeha's rage, however, seemed solely directed at Angela for the moment. "That part does not matter. She did _not_ deserve this, no matter what transpires below. This was already set in stone before we left for this place. Now, stop being the leader of ragtag Overwatch, and start being a _fucking_ doctor." When was the last time Lena had heard Fareeha curse like that? Her face was hard and cold, her armored posture as unyielding as a marble statue.

Lena felt her own heart sink as Angela clenched her jaw and visibly ground her teeth. Her dainty nostrils flared, and she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. The anger left her stance but the righteous indignation did not. Lena watched the most trusted of her allies fall from grace in that heated second. A twist in Lena's chest turned into a tumultuous fever pitch as she realized that Angela would not have been chosen for Overwatch's original program if she had not been able to be pragmatic, calculating, and willing to take massive risks… just like Lena, herself, could be… Even if Angela thought the recall was a bad idea, she was still an agent like the rest of them.

Angela slammed her caduceus onto the ground, unsettling a shingle, and a green gold light spilled from the revolving triad that directed energy. Like a healing fog, the light snaked lazily over Widowmaker's body like the golden fleece. A tendril also spiraled around Lena's leg, providing instant relief and drying the pained sweat on her brow. Fatigue overwhelmed Lena, and she felt her mind wander.

Over the next few minutes, Lena was only distantly aware of Fareeha scooping her up in one arm and Widowmaker in the other. As if in a dream, Lena felt herself floating down as Fareeha jumped from the roof, following the flow of Angela's wings. The air was so soothing and nice, she thought vaguely, as a light breeze wafted across her face. Her drying tears were cool on her face. Even as they drew closer to the crowd, the angry shouting seemed to grow more distant. Genji holding Zenyatta's motionless, slightly smoking body, protected by Hana's defensive matrix, just barely entered the corner of her blurred vision upon landing. Jostling motions. Fareeha was running. They were all running. Lena's eyes grew heavier despite the anxiety in her chest. She was just so tired…

* * *

Clanging woke Lena an indeterminate time later, and she tried not to make a sound, squeezing out the last few seconds of ignorant, sleeping bliss that she could. She didn't want to wake up and deal with the problems before her. Her leg screamed when she shifted from laying on her side to her back, aching with exhaustion and overexertion and, obviously, a reinjured bullet wound. A groan escaped her lips, despite her best effort.

Vague dèjá vu hit Lena like a sack of bricks, and she sat bolt upright, gagging from the sick, dizzying feeling in her gut. Her stomach churned and revolted but nothing came up. It had been too long since she last ate for her stomach to pose a projectile hazard, she thought grimly. Once the stinging from the gag-tears blurring her vision cleared, she realized that she now sat on the blue, checkered cloth couch back at the safehouse, looking into the side of the mostly open kitchen. More importantly, there were several sets of eyes locked on her. For a split second, she wondered if _she_ was the villain, after all.

Angela's hawk like eyes snapped to Lena's, several emotions and thoughts flickering through them - mostly guilt and disappointment. The pain in her leg flared again, and suddenly Lena felt for the first time that her left side was supported by Hana, who'd prevented her from falling over. She hadn't even realized she'd started listing. Small, strong hands rubbed between Lena's shoulders, staving off some of the nausea. Her head felt too heavy, and she propped her head on both of her hands, which rested on her knees. She didn't want to look at anyone. She didn't want anyone to look at her.

She felt… ashamed. But also...

A flash of anger allowed her to raise her eyes to meet Angela's intent gaze. "Is there a problem? By all means, don't let me stop you from making special, secret plans."

Angela's brow furrowed in a nervous way, making a pang of satisfaction flicker through Lena's heart before fading back into shame.

But… why would she be ashamed? She'd found Widowmaker. She'd tried to protect Amélie. She bit her lip.

Lena had willingly sacrificed Zenyatta, a valuable asset and friend, for someone that may or may not still be there.

 _No_ , Lena thought and shook her head. _Amélie is still there._ The train of thought lead to another. "Where is she?"

Genji stood, catching Lena off guard, his hot voice startling her. "You sacrificed him for an empty, childish hope."

McCree, of all people, put a hand on Genji's shaking, metallic shoulder. "Listen, partner, he's going to be alright."

Lena almost cringed at Jesse's exposed, unbloodied hands. Deep seated fear struck a chord within her, driving her back deeper into the couch with a small cry as agony seared through her thigh and hamstring. Her body moved as if her limbs were locked in molasses. Panic seized her heart, fear whispering that she was fading - that the void was claiming her again. The glint in his eyes. The smile on his face. Which time had it been? Logic fought its way through. _It's probably just leftover pain medicine_. The thought was only a small comfort to Lena at this point. Images from the rooftop felt seared into her mind. Blood. Jesse McCree covered in Widowmaker's blood. Amélie Lacroix's blood. Gérard's blood. Amélie's blood. Her own blood.

An irrational thought drifted through the chaos, and somehow it was the worst of all: _I wonder if his hand rusts when he washes the blood off._

Hana's gentle hands and voice brought Lena back. "Are you okay? Do you need to lay down?"

Lena closed her eyes and took several long, deep breaths before giving her head a feeble shake. Her lungs felt close to bursting, and her eyes felt sandblasted. "Wh-what do you mean he'll be okay?" She didn't dare direct the question specifically at McCree.

The television mounted on the opposite wall to the couch blinked on, a transparent photo of Zenyatta's face shadowing Athena's logo. A peaceful, if not slightly amused, voice came from the surrounding speakers. "He means that my memory unit, stored in the cranial compartment of my chassis, was undamaged. Widowmaker's shot merely disabled my physical form. Once the true me had been ported into the gracious Athena's system, I could access my memory and data as normally. Now, I can be with you all as long as my cranial compartment remains hooked to Athena's mainframe."

Air whistled through Lena's teeth as her mouth slacked open with a small _smack_. Zenyatta was there… He was _okay_.

Genji slammed his fist on the table. "We _need_ you, Zenyatta."

What could only be a patient sigh escaped through Athena's speakers. "I am with you all, and I will guide you as best I can given our circumstances. Genji, it is only my corporeal form that is temporarily disabled. Widowmaker could have taken a much more damaging shot."

The room went silent, save for heavy breathing and the low ticking of the kitchen clock.

Zenyatta let out another huff of pure exasperation, which would have made her laugh if she hadn't felt so terrified and alone. "Lena, she is in your room at the moment, being watched by Fareeha."

Lena glanced from Zenyatta's still image to Angela, who avoided her eyes. No one spoke, and Lena could feel everyone's eyes flick between Angela and Lena - an unspoken war of interest clear to everyone who saw.

"You can see her, but not without someone else there. She's going to be on an around the clock watch." Angela took a breath and pinched her nose, closing her eyes. "McCree did a _wonderful_ job of putting her out of commission, at least for a few hours, and she won't be very useful until she wakes up. I gave her a mild sedative and put her on a saline drip. She was… severely dehydrated." The words almost came out as a snarl. "If she gives us any trouble, though, I will not hesitate to remove her as a threat."

What had happened to Angela to make her this way?

Lena swallowed hard enough for everyone to hear and felt Hana wrap an arm around her waist, pulling her up and shouldering her enough for both to walk to Lena's room. Silence still reigned, a cruel, watchful ruler, mocking Lena's grunts and Hana's huffs.

They rounded the corner, and low murmuring voices came from the kitchen. They didn't want Lena to hear. They'd cut her out. It hurt. Despite Hana under her arm, supporting her, she felt small, like a child. An unidentifiable ache tore at her chest.

Hana looked up at Lena with a small, understanding smile. Her large brown eyes looked… sad - knowing, maybe, and she knocked lightly on the door. Fareeha cracked the door open, standing there in her usual casual attire - sweats and a tanktop. Her arms glinted in the dying evening light, her soulful eyes narrowing.

Hana waved her free hand. "Ang said it's okay. Besides, she's sleeping. It can't hurt."

Fareeha gave a quick, silent nod and opened the door enough to allow them both through. A small but comfortable chair sat in the corner of the room, facing the bed. A book lay face down on the seat to hold the reader's spot. Lena noticed the classically painted, nearly nude woman on the front, clinging to another, more clothed woman - a quick thought dashing through her mind. _A sleazy paperback romance with an odd choice in cover art, or a book on lesbians in the Renaissance era? Maybe classy lesbian romance novels just look like that._

Lena almost tried to preoccupy herself solely with the reading material in Fareeha's chair to avoid looking at Widowmaker, who slept in her bed. Some distant, unrealistic thought surfaced in the still murky waters of Lena's mind that, at one point, she'd thought about how Amélie would look in bed with her, but this isn't how she imagined it. But then, even now that distant image filled her with guilt. Amélie had loved Gérard with all her heart, and those fleeting thoughts Lena kept locked away. They had no place in their reality. More importantly to Lena, this isn't how she ever intended to get her best friend back.

Out of rabid, morbid curiosity, Lena finally gathered enough courage to look at the unconscious Widowmaker. Her heart skipped a beat or three. Someone had had the decency to clean the blood off of her, at least. At peace in her sleep - despite the lumpy black and blue bruises around her eyes and the split bottom lip, the slightly misshapen nose, Widowmaker looked exactly as Amélie did when she slept. Many nights spent at the LaCroix house had allowed Lena to be privy to such knowledge, and for a moment, all fear vanished. She knew that Amélie was still in there. The slightly worried furrow in Amélie's brow remained even in sleep, cracking the Widowmaker's unnervingly placid mask. Her blue lips, though swollen, parted. A quiet wheeze passed through them in the only snore that she ever had. Her fingers danced periodically just as they had done years before. She fidgeted even in her sleep.

Lena's hope gave way to nervousness when she realized that this might be the only Amélie that would ever come back - the only way Widowmaker could truly give herself to Amélie.

In unconsciousness.

A line ran from a newly added hook on the wall to Amélie's vein in her arm. The saline drip. Lena wanted to rush over to Amélie and apologize for everything that had happened. She wanted to think that her leg stopped her from doing that, but she knew, deep down, that the fear of helping the Widowmaker resurface again kept her from it more.

Lena glanced at Fareeha, the bloom of hope just now budding in her chest once more after the devastation on the roof. Fareeha gave a slight shake of her head. She hadn't woken up yet.

Lena built up the courage that flared, flickered, and extinguished several times already. "Can I-"

A knock in the door shattered her confidence level. Lena turned just enough to see Angela. She also noticed that Hana had started to break a sweat from supporting her weight. Angela's eyes slid off Lena's like teflon and stuck on Fareeha. "How are things?"

Fareeha grimaced and shrugged. "Her face is unsettling."

Angela gave a slow nod, which made Lena want to scream in fury. She could fix Amélie's face, but she wouldn't. "It's cosmetic," Angela said just as Lena mockingly shot off the words in her head. She paused when Fareeha shot her a stern look and sighed. "I should fix her nose before it starts healing wrong, though."

She strode past Lena and Hana without a second glance, prodded Amélie's slightly crooked nose, and, after a series of sounds like someone sat on a bag of pretzels, pulled away. Amélie's nose didn't quite look like a malformed squash anymore. It looked swollen, but still more resembled the dainty upturned nose that wrinkled when she laughed.

Angela turned back to Hana and Lena and smiled sorrowfully. She opened her mouth to speak, paused, and continued carefully. "Hana, you're tired, too. Lena, will you let me help you?"

Lena wanted to snap back but could feel Hana begin shaking. "Yeah, love. Why not?"

Angela's gaze only grew more weary.

With a few jostles and labored gasps, Lena shifted from the smaller Hana to the larger Angela, and immediately noticed the difference between the unsure kid sister and the weathered doctor. The surety in Angela's shoulders alone almost made Lena feel like she could walk without hindrance. She thought better of it an instant later when she put too much pressure on her bad leg.

"Where are the crutches, for crying out loud?" Lena grunted as Angela whirled her away and ushered her out. "And _where_ am I sleeping? _I_ don't have a problem with these arrangements, but I don't think _she_ would like it very much."

Lena felt Angela almost laugh, coming out as a hard breath. Leading Lena back to the couch, she yawned. "You'll have your room back to sleep tonight. She's going to sleep in the living room."

"On the floor?" Lena settled back onto the couch, supported by pillows. Her head felt heavy with sleep again.

Angela pursed her lips and tilted her head to one side. "Fareeha suggested an air mattress. She said that we should give her sheets and blankets and a proper place to sleep." Lena nodded vigorously and felt herself tipping. Angela rested a firm, warm hand on Lena's shoulder, keeping her upright. "You're going to be groggy for another two hours. That's why no crutches."

Lena looked up again, her eyes closing on their own. "What did you give me?" The words were slurred but intelligible.

Angela's soft smile colored Lena's fading vision. "A sedative and acetaminophen while you were unconscious, child. The sedative takes some time to work."

All she had time to think was _Oh_ , and then she was out.

* * *

Lena woke in her own bed several hours later. The low ticking analogue clock glinted in the blue light of her chronal accelerator. It was still dark outside, but that didn't particularly bother her. Her sleep schedule was a mess that mostly consisted of her going and going until she passed out. Her leg still ached tremendously. Where was Widowmaker? There wasn't any sign of her that Lena could see.

She looked over by her dresser to see a set of crutches resting just within arm's reach. She didn't immediately go for them and instead just enjoyed being under a warm blanket with the cool air on her face. The newly mounted television on the wall blinked on.

A tranquil voice came through the television's speakers, making the tone sound flatter than usual. "Hello, Lena. I see that you are awake."

Lena did her best not to roll her eyes and pull the covers back over her head. Instead, she sat up and propped herself on her many pillows. "Heya, Zen, what's up man?" She rubbed at her eyes and yawned.

"Angela desired that I 'check on' you upon your waking." He paused, hesitation creeping in. "I also had a few questions that I felt you would understand more than the others."

Lena's eyebrows became sentient for a moment and moved up without her willing them to do so. "Questions for _me_?"

Zenyatta remained silent for a minute before sheepishly remarking, "I momentarily forgot that I could not nod my head. Yes, I have questions with which you may be able to help, but if you cannot or do not wish to, please do not feel bad or inadequate. Ah, but first, I should alert Angela that you are conscious."

"Hey, wait. Uh…" Zenyatta's image did not move. Lena thought fast. If Angela knew she was awake, Zenyatta might not be able to talk. "Wait a bit, and let's talk first, yeah?"

Zenyatta's tone seemed hesitant yet again. "I am not comfortable with lying to Angela."

Lena sighed and felt that explaining the situation might put him more at ease. "Well, knowing Angela, if you tell her about me being awake right away, we might not be able to talk about what's bothering you." Lena shrugged and knocked on her chronal accelerator. "I know we have later, probably, but we never know if we'll still be here."

Zenyatta allowed an extended pause again, but Lena just looked at the webcam atop the television blankly. "Ah, again. The head nodding. Imagine me nodding my head."

Lena laughed a genuine laugh. The great and wise teacher was having to relearn how to work within his confines.

"I will agree to talk with you before contacting Angela. She is out buying groceries while Genji works on my body."

Lena nodded. "Alright, love. I'm all ears."

Zenyatta said nothing back for a moment.

"Are you nodding?" Lena couldn't hold back the smile she felt creeping up on her.

A small chuckle came from the speakers with a small crackle. "Ah, no. I am merely contemplating how best to pose my thoughts."

Lena cocked her head to one side, sat up all the way, and bent her right leg, holding one of the pillows close to her body to drown out the blue light's reflection in her uncovered window. She didn't want to risk anyone seeing the light and alert them to her being awake. "Sometimes, if you think too much, it just stops you from being able to say what you want! Just start talking, and I'll put the rest together, love. I'm quick on my feet in more ways than one!"

Zenyatta replied quickly, "I am now nodding."

Lena laughed again. "Good to know. Now, let's get to it. What do you need?"

"Well, you see, I noticed how quickly my students turned without my physical presence and guidance. I'm starting to wonder if I am indeed as good to them as they claim. Additionally, now that I am merely my mental capacity imported into another system, how can I help them and comfort them when they do not see me as being _with_ them?" He paused. "Even in the ten hours I've been sharing Athena's system, I've encountered difficulties and experienced perspectives I could have never known without this circumstance."

Lena chewed on a fingernail and leaned against the wall so that she didn't have to prop herself up as much. "Like what?"

"Athena is wise beyond measure. She is teaching me, whenever she can devote enough of her systems to the task. Within her platform, she can function on several levels of consciousness and still carry out a conversation. I feel what she feels. I know not how I can claim an enlightened state when I still know nothing. She has humbled me." He paused thoughtfully. "My brother's downfall came from a lack of humility, I feel. I still mourn him, though I know we are only temporarily separated." He stopped, clearly waiting for input.

Lena shook her head. "Man, for a super wise monk, you sure are talking a lot. Not that that's a bad thing!" she added quickly.

Zenyatta offered a genuine, if embarrassed laugh. "It's very difficult to filter the different levels of my thoughts through Athena's programs. It is hard to believe the amount of control she has over her own thoughts to not express them all at once." A pause. "I would also not call myself a monk, because that would indicate that I am sexually inactive."

"Oh my god, Zenyatta. I didn't need to know that about you." Lena buried her face in the pillow she held against her chest.

Zenyatta offered a mischievous laugh in response. "On a more serious note, I realize now that without this experience, I would never be able to understand my AI brothers and sisters on the level that I now do. Their lives are hard, Lena." A pause. "Athena believes she is the most well treated artificial intelligence in the world, because of you all. You treat her less like a tool and more like a friend. I now see that that's where a great problem is within our society. Even we omnics have a hierarchy of who is more human." Another pause. "I'm shaking my head."

Lena looked up at Zenyatta. "You almost sound grateful that Widowmaker shot you."

"I am nodding slightly, for what it is worth." A pause. "I am also smiling."

Lena rolled her eyes. "Oh, now, _that's_ hard enough even _with_ your body! Your face doesn't move!"

Zenyatta let out what sounded like a snort but came through as squealy feedback. Surely someone heard that noise. "I am grateful for Widowmaker, in a way, just as I am sure that you are grateful that she shot you in the leg. Sometimes life's most unpleasant experiences are the ones that teach us the most."

Lena shrugged one shoulder and noticed the pain creeping back into all of her joints. She could really use something stronger than an acetaminophen. "I'm just glad she made it nonlethal. For both of us."

"Yes, and that is why I am grateful. She allowed me to better understand my people, and she did less damage than she could have."

Lena nodded slowly, thinking quickly. "Zenyatta, I have a question for you."

He paused. "It is only fair that I answer your questions. I want to help as best I can."

"Zenyatta… Why did you trust her enough to let her shoot you?" She paused but followed up quickly. "It just feels like no one else sees the good in her besides me."

He paused thoughtfully. "I am not nodding, for clarification. I am thinking about phrasing."

Lena nodded back with an understanding hand gesture.

When Zenyatta spoke, it took Lena aback slightly and hit her hard. "I believe the Widowmaker to be more than just her programming."

* * *

The first time Widowmaker was conscious enough to function, Angela had interrogated her in front of everyone. They had moved her from the bed to the main living area, on the couch, and it was cool enough that Lena noticed goosebumps on Widowmaker's arms. She wasn't heavily restrained, but Lena could clearly see that her handcuffs were too tight, chafing her arms to a dusty purple.

"Why did you shoot Zenyatta?"

Widowmaker's placid, blank face did not change from its neutral mask. "He was my objective."

Angela's eyes blazed as she ground her teeth. "Why didn't you kill him?"

"I did not feel as if his death was necessary to accomplish Talon's mission." Widowmaker kept her tone flat, but her eyes flicked between Angela and McCree far too often to be absent.

"What was Talon's mission?"

"To put Tekhartha Zenyatta out of Talon's way."

Another rapid fire question shot out from Angela's mouth. "Why did they want to take out Zenyatta?"

Widowmaker was still unruffled by Angela's venom and did not break eye contact. "He would have turned the tide in Italy in favor of the omnics."

"Why would Talon want Italy to hate the omnics?"

"So that Italian government would side with Talon."

Angela rolled her eyes, clearly growing more irritated. "Can you give more details than just that?"

Widowmaker hesitated for the first time, eyebrows knitting together with concern. "If I know what you want, I will give you my best answer."

Angela pinched the bridge of her nose, and McCree put a hand on her shoulder. That unsettled Lena. "Did you intend to be captured?"

"No."

"You could kill us all if you wanted, and you haven't. Why?"

Widowmaker paused again at that, tilting her head and looking off to the side with narrowed eyes. Her next words were obviously carefully placed. "You are not my objective." From the way she said it, it sounded as if she were carefully explaining something to a child.

Angela threw up her hands and turned away. Interrogation time was apparently over.

Two more days passed uneventfully, Lena mostly being kept in her room with breaks to go to Hana's room and lounging there instead. Hana put her to work, though. She wasn't streaming anymore, for now; at least while they were in Florence, outgoing data like that was far too sensitive. Even without that source of information, she had mountains of data for Lena to sift through about things she didn't quite understand. Most of the data was schematics of Zenyatta's build to help best put him back together.

Hana also taught Lena a little coding, and hacked the nearest supermarket's security system to blink offline just long enough for Angela to get more groceries. They were anticipating a long stay at the Florence safehouse, especially since the news channels had begun portraying Overwatch as the ones who had fired into a crowd of grieving people, just as Widowmaker had warned.

Lena still avoided being in the same room as Jesse McCree for more than a few minutes at a time. He had no bruises to remind her. He'd only beaten Widowmaker with his metal hand. Lena worried that she could still see the blood if she looked too hard.

Lena limped through the kitchen, stabilizing herself on her crutches. Her hair dripped onto her grey shirt, coloring it black with water droplets. She tried to stay cleaner this time around. Hana helped when she was too medicated to care. Once Lena and Zenyatta finished their talk, Angela had been alerted and, of course, administered more medicine to help Lena sleep while Angela did her healing magic. Lena had drunkenly insisted on getting clean from the rooftop. That was the first time she'd been given a sponge bath probably since she was a baby. Part of her wanted to be embarrassed after the fact, but Hana just diligently waited and helped.

Not without a few jokes, of course.

"Damn, Lena, I didn't know you were into this stuff. That's just strange."

"Oh my god, Hana. Stop making it weird."

"Listen, if you could actually sit up on your own, I wouldn't ever have to know what you look like naked, but instead, I'm worried you'll knock your head and die."

Lena put up only the smallest of fights then. She was just glad she could skip the embarrassing bits this time.

She cracked open the fridge and pulled out a coke instead of her usual morning tea. Angela sat at the kitchen table, laboring over Zenyatta's model schematics. Lena didn't immediately ask Angela if she needed anything, but guilt drove her to it shortly after considering whether or not to ask.

"Hey, Ang, do you need me to get you something?" She tried to sound nonchalant, but worry crept in at the last few words.

Angela's eyes tracked rapidly over the schematic another second before she blinked and looked up. "I'm sorry, what?"

Lena shrugged, taking a sip of her coke. "Do you need anything from the fridge while I'm standing here?"

Angela's tired eyes focused on nothing for another moment. "Are you done being angry with me?"

Lena choked on her coke a little. She closed the fridge. "Angela…"

Angela put up a placating hand. "I… I'm tired, Lena."

She didn't want to fight. She didn't want to argue. "I'm not angry, Ang. You… did what you felt like you had to do. You couldn't have known that he would beat her." She paused. "Not like that, anyway." The image of McCree's shining, bloodied hand flickered through her mind, making her cringe.

"I should have told you what I meant to do - what I meant to happen. I'm-" Her shoulders sagged and her face twisted like it did when she was gearing up to cry. She sunk into the chair behind her. "I'm sorry, Lena. I… I failed you. I thought if you didn't know that we could… we could secure her without a fight. All I thought about were the risks of having you on board. Never the potential benefits. Never about what you deserved. No one else knew. just… just McCree and I." She covered her face.

Lena hobbled over with her crutches, less adeptly than she wished she could. She sat in the chair adjacent to Angela and rested a hand on her shoulder. "Angela, I know you. Believe it or not, I _know_ you, and I know that sometimes you screw up. But I… don't think I can forgive _him_. Not again. This is just too… familiar." Lena dared not say the name, in case it would make him appear.

Angela nodded solemnly through her now falling tears. Lena had heard the phrase "pretty crier" before, but she knew that no one was beautiful when so twisted with sorrow.

"Ang, I… I've been talking to Zenyatta."

Angela looked up, patches on her cheeks looking swollen and red as she sniffled. "About what?"

"I know that you don't trust Widowmaker because of… Reaper. I don't think she's gone, Angela. She's been _cooperating_."

Angela slammed her hand down onto Zenyatta's schematics. "But _why?"_ The venom reentered her voice.

Lena pulled her hand back as though it had been slapped away. "She doesn't feel like she's repaid her debt. That's all I can figure."

"What _debt_?"

Lena shrugged and tried not to look unsettled from Angela's sudden change. "Zenyatta thinks that she might feel like she owes us for sparing her life."

Angela grew quiet. Lena's heart clenched. Angela would never trust her. Angela would never reach out to her. She was too volatile. Too hopeful. Too willing to risk.

"Lena, I am… tired," she reiterated, tone now back to its weary, worn self. "Would you watch her tonight?"

Lena reached out to the table, feeling as though her world might be spinning. It was not. "Wh-what?"

"With Hana, of course."

The distrust back once again. Lena felt herself grind her teeth, a flare of anger sparking in her chest. Why couldn't Angela just _trust_ her?

The anger flickered out like a weak flame. Lena conceded. That would be the only way to be near Widowmaker. Supervised and reported.

Lena gave a curt, strained nod. She changed the subject before Angela could change her mind. "Have you slept?"

Angela sat staring blankly at the schematics for another moment before responding. "Not in 72 hours."

Lena narrowed her eyes and accusingly pointed her finger at Angela. She tried to mimic Angela's accent with mixed results. "You lose significant brain function if you do not sleep!"

Angela offered a wan smile and stood again. "Genji has another six hours working on Zenyatta's body. I should… get some rest."

"Are you guys switching off?"

Angela nodded. "Every eight hours." A moment of silence fell between them before Lena couldn't wait any longer and fired off another burning question.

"How stuck are we, Angela?"

A sigh was the only response for a long moment. "We can't move Zenyatta's body without causing more damage, and we could fix him quicker in Drachten. Athena's system isn't as strong here, so she can only provide schematics and vague advice without tapping into a greater system. Not to mention how invaluable Winston's expertise would be. With the Italian government looking for us now, it's dangerous for Athena to stray too far or for us to send out a distress signal to Winston. We're probably stuck for two weeks minimum. After that time, we should have Zenyatta stable enough to move him."

Lena chewed on her lip. "What about Widowmaker?"

Angela looked up at Lena with bloodshot eyes. Her voice sent little chills down Lena's spine. "As long as she continues to cooperate, we'll burn that bridge when we come to it."


	12. Break Your Heart

Lena and Hana both made sure that they had adequate snacks, comfortable clothes, and entertainment for the night. Widowmaker, from what Lena knew, sat silently unless she was being interrogated. She did not make eye contact. She did not sigh. She did not move from her corner. She did not do anything. She left her bed mostly abandoned, save for occasionally stealing the comforter to wrap around herself. Lena wasn't even sure how much she was paying attention to her surroundings; most of the time, Widowmaker's face was blank, passive. Every so often, though, Lena would glance over and find the assassin watching her captors like a hawk, as if searching for the slightest signs of weakness. It could be unsettling.

That evening, Lena sat on the couch and looked at the Widowmaker's back. That tattoo. It just barely peeked over her tanktop, but it was there. That spider tattoo. It haunted her dreams. She'd never been particularly afraid of spiders, but that image visited her when she least expected - when she was most vulnerable.

Widowmaker was wearing some of Lena's old clothes; the catsuit she usually wore outside of Talon HQ was neither clean nor particularly appropriate, and she had been allowed to choose her replacements from among Lena's wardrobe. The black tank top and grey sweatpants were small for her, but Lena thought they must have been more comfortable than the alternative, and she'd been the only one other than Hana - who was even smaller - who had been willing to share.

McCree brushed past the three of them, walking from the kitchen to his temporary room in the attic. He looked more than a little irritated.

"Hey, Jess, what's with the face? Is there a snake in your boot?" Hana grinned smugly.

Before he could answer, Lena snapped, unable to contain her barely concealed mistrust and disdain for the mercenary. "He _is_ the snake."

McCree just shrugged and ignored Lena's remark wholesale. She got the feeling that he'd heard remarks like that quite a few times in his life. "I'm just a little put out that we only have light beers."

"Come on. MC CREE IN THE HOUSE. Go get your own beers."

McCree blinked a few times. His tone was cautious. "Hana, are you drunk?"

Hana shrugged. "Look, man. I haven't streamed in days. All my shitty jokes have to go somewhere."

Lena rolled her eyes and pushed Hana over. "Yeah, it's not healthy to let toxic waste build up in your body."

McCree laughed and went on his way, but Lena stared and narrowed her eyes as he walked off. Silence fell for a second before Hana turned, making a face. A Hana face. Her nose scrunched and her eyes narrowed, but her mouth twisted in a half smile, half snarl. She made sure McCree was out of sight.

"I don't know what happened up there on the roof, but it must have been bad."

Lena almost wanted to let Hana stay ignorant, but she figured honestly would be better than keeping her in the dark. "I thought he was going to kill her." Lena looked over at Widowmaker in her corner. She looked like a child in time out, but much less petulant. She'd turned back around once McCree was gone, watching the room but… She looked lost. "He doesn't have bruises on his hand for a reason. He was… covered in her blood. I thought… I thought he was coming for me next." Lena shook her head. "I knew he was a mercenary, but I thought that maybe he'd changed. We had our problems in the past, but I thought he'd _changed_."

Hana put a hand on Lena's forearm. "I believe you, Lena."

That brought a smile to Lena's cheeks. The alarm on Hana's phone starting going off, playing some anime intro, probably. Lena noticed Widowmaker shift, eyes locking onto Lena and seeming to focus for the first time in a while.

"That's the alarm for your next dose of pain relievers." Widowmaker's voice was bland and distant but held the smallest traces of contempt mixed with concern.

Hana looked at Widowmaker carefully before nodding. "Yeah, it is." She stood. "I'll be right back. Do you want water or tea?"

Lena considered for a moment. "Tea and some crisps. I hate taking that stuff on an empty stomach."

Hana nodded and disappeared only to pop around the corner and look at Widowmaker, who still gazed intently at Lena. Her eyes tracked over Lena's face as if looking for the crack in her mask. "Hey, Widowmaker."

Widowmaker's eyes shifted off Lena's face to Hana's, and Lena felt a surge of relief in the change. "What, child?"

The word didn't sound condescending as it usually did, but Hana's eyes narrowed, nonetheless. "I'll give you a one time pass on using that word with me."

Widowmaker inclined her head gracefully in acknowledgement.

"I was gonna ask. Are you thirsty? Do you want something to eat or drink?"

Widowmaker's eyebrows drew together and got incredibly friendly, almost making a unibrow. "I- What?"

"Do you want something to _drink_?" Hana spoke slower and slightly louder as if to a child.

"I do not require any more liquids to function." Lena's heart skittered. Widowmaker looked confused.

"Okay, but do you _want_ something? You've just been sitting there for two _days_. You don't talk unless spoken to, really, and you don't ask for anything."

"I-" Widowmaker chewed on her lips, and Lena could see a flicker of Amélie in the nervous gesture. "May I have something warm?"

Lena perked up. "We have tea and coffee!"

Widowmaker pulled the comforter closer around her shoulders. "Whatever you choose is what I will have."

Lena shifted on the couch, noticing that the pain in her leg had started nagging again. "Well, which do you like more?"

Hana waved a hand. "While you guys figure it out, I'm going to make yours." And she disappeared.

Widowmaker looked at the space no longer occupied by Hana and back to Lena. Lena temporarily found herself trapped in Widowmaker's amber eyes. Again, she felt like a fly entrapped in Widowmaker's web, but this time the honeyed sweetness in her eyes could drown Lena and she wouldn't care. She felt her mouth open, but no words came out. Widowmaker's eyes flicked to Lena's leg.

"Is your wound too painful?" Something that Lena hoped was concern tinted Widowmaker's words.

Lena closed her gaping maw and shook her head. "It's feelin' a bit gammy, yeah." Lena rubbed at her eyes at Widowmaker's expression. "It's starting to hurt a bit more than usual."

Widowmaker said nothing and leaned forward as if looking at Lena's leg, which she now wanted to keep covered no matter the temperature. Goodbye bikini body. "I did not mean to injure you like this."

Lena leaned back and folded her arms, looking away. Her heart skittered, and sweat prickled under her arms. She didn't want Widowmaker to see weakness or fear, but fear wasn't exactly the feeling attacking her insides. She was nervous. Maybe that was a type of fear, but she felt like Widowmaker could _see_ her for the person she was. That's when it dawned on Lena that she was afraid that Widowmaker could see how willing she could be. Maybe Widowmaker could see it without Lena helping.

"Tracer?" Widowmaker quietly inquired.

Lena chewed on her thumbnail and looked back over at Widowmaker, avoiding direct eye contact. "What is it?"

She did not raise her voice from the whisper in which she'd introduced her inquiry. "May I call you Lena?"

Hana popped in with a bag of crinkley potato chips under one arm, a water glass in one hand, and a mug of tea in the other hand. "I also got you some water, just in case taking pills with hot drinks was too weird."

Lena smiled at Hana, stuffing down her irritation. They were having a _moment_. Widowmaker's willingness to talk fluttered away like a frightened bird. "Hey, love, I don't mind if you call me Lena. I feel like it's a lot less formal than the whole codename thing. Talon probably has all of our names on file, and you're just being polite."

Widowmaker gave a noncommittal nod. She opened her mouth again with more hesitation than before. Her eyes repeatedly darted over to Hana, who played Animal Crossing with headphones in. "I would… like some tea, if that offer still stands."

Hana looked up. "Yeah, we've got all types, but we might be low on some."

Lena's heart ached at Widowmaker's widening eyes, but she couldn't help laughing a little in pity at the poor woman's astonishment. "You have more than _one_?" Widowmaker's eyes shot over to Lena, shame creeping into her face and highlighting her ears and cheeks.

"We have a lot more than one, love."

Widowmaker just sat there, anxiety creeping into her posture through a rigid form and pained expression. If Lena hadn't known better, she would have thought that Widowmaker looked as though she were on the edge of a panic attack. She knew what that looked like, and this wasn't it - still, there was something deeply wrong about the assassin's reaction to the idea of more than one tea. "Can you just… choose one for me?"

Lena nodded, a nostalgic, melancholy feeling touching at her smile. "Hana, could you pour her a cup of jasmine tea?"

Hana rolled her eyes but got up. "Want anything to eat while I'm up? You know I _live_ to serve."

Lena blew a playful raspberry in reply.

Widowmaker hesitated, but a low, warbling growl from Widowmaker's stomach caused even Hana to laugh. "I do not trust the food the doctor and the mercenary have tried to feed me."

Lena blinked. "You haven't eaten in two days?"

Widowmaker's eyes seemed colder than before. It was a startling change, even for one so subtle. She looked… predatory. "Why wouldn't they try to poison me?"

Hana's reaction made Lena's smile return. "We don't _drug_ and _kill_ our captives, okay? We aren't like that." She glanced at Lena, whose butterflies crept in again. "Are we?" If they hadn't grown as close as they had as quickly as they had, Lena might have missed the note of genuine uncertainty in the girl's voice.

Sometimes Lena forgot that Hana wasn't as experienced as the others and would probably not know protocol on things like captives. Hell, Lena wasn't exactly sure where to draw the line, but she wasn't about to disallow Hana from providing Widowmaker with something to eat and drink. With an incredulous tone, Lena laughed defensively. "No? We don't really try to hurt people we take in. We try to treat them like _people_. Angela might forget that, when she's trying to be Ms. Cold And Calculating Chessmistress, and McCree might not care, but me and Hana aren't like that." She shook her head, held up a finger, and took her medicine quickly. "Hana, could you make her a pb &j? We've got all the fixin's for that."

Hana smiled and shot off sarcastically to Lena, "With or without crust?"

Widowmaker spoke, stunning both of them temporarily. "Without." Her face seemed as shocked as Lena felt. The warmth in her eyes had returned.

The glimmer of hope in Lena's chest also returned. In some distant memory, she recalled waking up on the Lacroixs' couch, watching Amélie prepare lunches for herself, her husband, and Lena. She'd cut the crust off all three, and when Lena teased her about it, Amélie had simply shrugged and dumped Lena's in the garbage with a great smile. The nostalgia turned sour when Lena looked into Widowmaker's concerned and confused eyes. She might never know who she had been before Talon had changed her. Stubborn determination, a feeling Lena knew well, solidified in her mind as she set her jaw. She would at least _try_ to show Widowmaker who she used to be.

Stubborn determination was what had gotten Lena her first flying lesson. It had shown her the path through schooling and in her hobbies. It was why she could fix just about anything that ran on an engine. It was why she'd broken into Overwatch in the first place. It was _how_ she was _found_ by Overwatch. It's why she'd accepted Overwatch's proposition. It had been the utter basis for her functioning without her parents and without much external guidance. She would never back down from a challenge - no matter the dangers or the cost, and she would do it with a smile. It had been what drove her to volunteer for the Slipstream experiment. Unmovable determination, Lena felt, was the only reason she had been able to reform her particles after the accident, even though it was supposed to be random. She had kept herself existing, however imperfectly, through _sheer willpower,_ when they all said her atoms should have been scattered halfway through time and space.

She'd come back from worse than death, and fought alongside her teammates even in the worst of times. She'd come back stronger than ever, even if her footing was a little shaky, her defiant grin a little forced.

Talon's Widowmaker could be cracked.

And she, Lena Oxton, would do it.

Lena jumped a little when Widowmaker moved. It was a lightning fast flicker of motion that plucked up the sandwich Hana had, at some point, placed before her. Widowmaker's mouth was opened just enough, about to bite down, when she paused.

She looked at Lena. "Is this safe?"

Lena blinked, that passionate flare of determination crackling with confusion and wonder. "What do you mean?"

Widowmakers eyes flicked to Hana. "Is it _safe_?"

Lena blinked a few more times before laughing. Widowmaker's gaze turned cold once more. The chill reached Lena's heart and her chuckle faded out. One day she might get used to Widowmaker and Amélie switching off constantly, but right now, it was incredibly jarring and unsettling in the least. Lena cleared her throat, the sneaking self consciousness rising yet again. "Yeah, Hana's a good one. If you can't get me, she'd one to trust."

Widowmaker gave a curt nod and tore a piece of bread from the rest, still a little more tentatively than initially. She turned it this way and that, examining it like a bird studying a particularly interesting bug, as though she might find a drop of poison on the food. When she couldn't find anything, she looked… almost frustrated. She thrust the small piece of bread out in front of her, toward Lena, her brow furrowed. "Eat this." The heavy blanket she had wrapped tightly around herself slipped off of one pale blue shoulder, revealing a bit of the black tank top they'd dressed her in.

Hana frowned. "Look, lady, we already told you that we aren't going to poison y-"

Lena rolled her eyes, and before she could think about how tremendously stupid she was being, leaned forward about as far as she could without tearing her leg open, opened wide, and simply plucked the bit of sandwich from Widowmaker's fingers with her teeth.

Widowmaker jerked her hand back as fast as if Lena had slapped it.

" _Lena!"_ Hana shrieked.

Lena rocked back, chewing thoughtfully. "Hmm," she said. She chewed some more. "Hmmmm."

Widowmaker's eyes were wide, her mouth slightly agape. She grasped the hand that had held the bread gingerly with her other, cradling it like it had broken. Or maybe… nah, that was silly. There was nothing tender about her.

Lena kept chewing, way longer than was actually necessary. Until…. she froze. Her eyes flew open and she made a loud choking noise, her hands flying to her throat. She flailed wildly. "Poi… son…."

Widowmaker actually flew to her feet, her eyes darting this way and that. A trapped animal planning an escape route. Her eyes rested a long second on Hana's throat and flicked to Lena. Her eyes lingered on Lena, though, and there was something almost like concern written on her face. Concern and… regret?

Hana slapped the back of Lena's head. Hard. "Don't be mean, Lena."

Lena almost choked on the bit of mush in her mouth for real, but she managed to get it down safely after a few moments. She breathed hard. "I reckon I deserved that." She rubbed ruefully at the back of her head, then glanced back up at Widowmaker, and realized for the first time how much that little stunt had gotten to their guest.

She instantly found herself filled with regret. "Sorry, love. I'm okay, see?" She raised both hands out before her and wiggled all ten fingers. "One piece. Right as rain. Sometimes I just, get a little carried away, yeah? Sit back down."

Hana nodded. Her voice was surprisingly gentle. "Lena doesn't know when too much is too much. I should know."

Widowmaker stood silently for a long few moments, looking from Hana's face to Lena's as if searching their expressions for the truth. Finally, slowly, oh so cautiously, she settled back down onto the floor. The blanket had fallen from her shoulders in the sudden movement, and she took a moment to drape it over her arms and pull it tight. "...A joke." She considered, but there was still a hint of something Lena couldn't identify in her eyes. "I do not think it was a particularly funny joke." She changed tracks so quickly Lena felt the whiplash in her neck. "Why did you take the food from me with your mouth?"

Hana laughed, clearly recovered from Lena's stunt. "Wow. It isn't even midnight, and I need to go."

Lena felt her cheeks catch on fire. "Ah, you know, love. Just a part of the joke." She knew that Hana knew her true feelings thanks to an act of divine intervention called pain medication.

Widowmaker did not blink. "Your sense of humor is… odd." Did that mean that Widowmaker _had_ a sense of humor, or that humor was simply something she was trying to figure out? It was an interesting thing to think about.

Lena rubbed at her eyes and look a sip from her teacup with a muttered, "Tell me about it."

Hana checked her phone and slapped at her forehead, muttering a curse in Korean. "Ugh. It really isn't a joke this time."

Lena looked up, still holding the teacup to her lips. She only raised her eyebrows before taking a loud slurp.

"Athena has an info dump that she needs me to sift through. Will you be okay if I leave you to watch her? All you have to do is make a mildly distressed sound, and I'll be here." Hana looked pained and… worried?

Lena could only assume Hana remembered how the last time her time alone with Widowmaker had gone. "You don't want someone else to sit with me?" It was a genuine question. Lena felt responsible for the hard time Hana had last time. She didn't want a repeat any more than Hana did.

Hana shook her head. "You two… need some time together. To talk, of course." She winked. "Like I said. I'm right in the next room if you need me."

Lena nodded, dry mouthed despite drinking warm tea. "Sure, thanks, Hana."

Widowmaker continued to pick at her peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich. She watched Hana leave with cool, distant eyes. "Do they not trust you, Lena?" It sounded too calculating for Lena's liking - as if Widowmaker were searching for weak links in the team.

"Nah, it's just my bum leg." Lena shrugged, playing off the question.

Widowmaker seemed to question the lie a moment before taking it as truth. Guilt wracked Lena's aching heart. Widowmaker _couldn't_ know what was really truth because of how many lies she'd been fed. Lena didn't want to be another lie machine. She sighed heavily before looking back over glumly. "Okay, as of now, we only tell each other truths."

Amélie shimmered just under the pale skin of Widowmaker's face. Confusion and care bore trenches in her forehead and around her eyes. "I only speak the truth." She bit her lip. "I will only speak the whole truth to you, but I do speak only truths."

Lena nodded, seriously for once. "They want to watch me because they think I'm… that I have a blind spot for you. That I would do _anything_ to bring Amélie home."

Widowmaker processed the information but eased into Amélie. "Why would you do that for someone?"

Lena barked out a laugh. "Are we switching questions? Because right now it would be my turn."

Widowmaker shifted back into place, placid expression seeming out of place with the still healing wounds. "Do you not wish to answer my questions?"

Lena shook her head. "Nah, it's not like that, love. Just uh…" She pursed her lips and moved her hands in a circular motion. "To keep the conversation going, we might want to take turns asking questions. If one of us is uncomfortable answering, we can just say 'pass' and go to the next!" She paused. She'd seen an episode of something on the telly where the one person only said 'pass' to every question. "But you can't pass every question."

Widowmaker nodded. "Is this a game?"

Lena shrugged. "Sorta."

Her eyes narrowed but she conceded. "I will play your game. Going by the rules, it is your turn."

Butterflies attacked Lena's stomach more like hungry vultures than dainty butterflies. She was more or less alone with Widowmaker and neither of them was trying to attack the other. "Uh, well…" She felt a blush creeping over her cheeks. She didn't really have a question ready. "Did you like the pb&j?"

Widowmaker's eyebrows furrowed. She looked like she might be thinking over her words. "That is an odd question, but… yes, I think I did. I liked the jam."

Lena felt her classic grin smear across her face like a comfortable old jacket. "It was strawberry."

Almost absently, tenderly, Widowmaker lifted her fingers to her lips and licked off a smear of peanut butter. Lena felt herself stare in blushing horror and try to look away. She felt like one of Hana's old animated Japanese film characters where the characters' hair would puff up when they were determined or flustered. Lena was definitely flustered.

"I think I like strawberry. It's much more pleasing than some other flavors." Widowmaker looked at her finger and rubbed off the spit on her other hand, much like a child would.

"Do you want another? Something more substantial, maybe?"

Widowmaker frowned. "I thought my question was next."

Lena held back a giggle without complete success. She could feel the goofy smile on her face. "Yeah. It is."

Widowmaker fired her question as precisely as firing her rifle. She made no fuss in getting down to brass tacks. "Why are you being… amiable to me?"

Lena's eyebrows raised in response. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Is that your question or your answer?"

It was an innocent enough of a question, but Lena giggled again. It felt nice to laugh with her, even if it wasn't completely with Amélie. "Nah, silly. I'm being nice because that's…" She didn't want to say _that's who I am_ because it wasn't completely true. And a little arrogant. "I'm being nice because I feel like you should be treated well."

Widowmaker contorted her face and turned her mouth into a skeptical, lopsided scrunch. "I do not know if I believe your teammates feel the same."

Lena gave a noncommittal hand flop and finger waggle. "Hana does."

"Hana Song is…" Widowmaker made that face again. "She is very different from the files that Talon has."

That piqued Lena's interest from a professional standpoint. She raised her hand like a grade schooler. "I would like to ask my question now."

Widowmaker's usually flat eyes sparkled with amusement, and she inclined her head daintily, raven black hair tumbling over her shoulders in the motion. "Ask."

Lena hesitated for a moment. She didn't want to exploit Widowmaker, but she _did_ have a job to do somewhere in all this mess. "What do they say about her?"

Widowmaker gave another graceful nod. "I cannot give you all of the information, but I _can_ tell you a few things." Her lips quirked in a faint, barely detectable smile - the way Amélie did when she was being particularly sly. "My files on all of you are very surface - your habits, weapons, styles, ages, weaknesses, strengths…" She trailed off in an _et cetera_ motion before continuing. "Hana's file focuses solely on her persona rather than her actual character. All I know is that she would do anything to win. I know none of her weaknesses other than that she is a poor loser."

Lena snorted and took a sip of tea. "That's because she's the strongest one on our team. She _has_ no weaknesses." Her eyes widened a little when she saw Widowmaker registering her words. "Listen…"

Widowmaker shook her head and replied quickly. "That tells me nothing and is inessential information, which will never make it outside of these walls."

Lena rested her cup on her stomach and looked at Widowmaker for a long moment. Widowmaker had just ignored "inessential information" when it was clearly _essential_. Talon could really hurt the current Overwatch agents with that information, but Widowmaker decided to toss it out. Why?

Widowmaker sat a long moment before huddling deeper down in her comforter, hair piling over the edges of her little head hole and tumbling around her like an odd black shroud. The silence stretched before her muffled voice came from within the comforter, her eyes peeking over the edge cautiously. "C-could you make me another sandwich…?"

Lena laughed, set her cup on the coffee table, and shifted enough to prepare her crutches. "Yeah, love, just follow me to the kitchen, okay?"

Widowmaker nodded and stood in one swift motion, still holding the blanket tight around her bare shoulders. Lena could only think of seeing young children do the same. In many ways, though, Widowmaker _was_ like a child. A giant, slightly creepy murder child who had once been her best friend - but a child nonetheless. She was experiencing the world for the first time through wide, frightened eyes. She hid it well - but Lena could see it. One day, she was sure the others would too.

Lena hobbled to the kitchen more adeptly than she would have even a couple days ago, and rummaged in the fridge. "I'm sure you want something a little more substantial than peanut butter, yeah?" Widowmaker must have sensed that it was a rhetorical question. "How you you feel about meat?" She looked over the fridge door to see Widowmaker standing in the threshold of the kitchen, eyes flitting about nervously as a trapped, feral cat. "You can come into the kitchen, you know."

Irritated skepticism flickered across Widowmaker's face. "The doctor would not even let me _shower_. I don't know how she would treat me if I came into her kitchen."

Lena blinked again and paused, leaning harder on her crutches. "Do you _want_ a shower?"

Widowmaker looked at the sandwich bread and back to Lena, biting her lip. "May I have another sandwich first?"

Lena laughed and pulled out some ham, provolone, and mayonnaise. "I think you used to not mind a decent ham and cheese, if my memory's still alright. Who knows after hitting my head so damn much in this job…"

Widowmaker made no noise while Lena muttered to herself and whipped up a sandwich for her. A chair scraping the kitchen floor made Lena's teeth stand on edge. She looked up to find Widowmaker huddled down in her blanket and watching as she always did.

"Whose turn is it?" Lena asked, trying to lighten the mood.

Widowmaker said nothing for a moment, Lena looking over her shoulder expectantly, before she yawned - a feline looking movement. Lena smiled. "I'll go if you don't care."

Widowmaker nodded, rubbing at one of her eyes. Lena felt that soft, hopeful glow come back that kept fading in and out of her chest. This time it felt like it would stay more than a couple seconds. She'd seen Amélie look much the same when she would invite Lena to her and Gérard's apartment. He often spent so much time on missions that he was not home very much. After Lena and Amélie became fast friends, Lena spent her free nights with Amélie, if Amélie was alone, of course. Some nights that Gérard came home, he'd insist that Lena stay for at least dinner. She often slept on their couch even when he was home. Her only real home was at Overwatch bases.

"What are you thinking right now?" The words tumbled out. Lena remembered how weak she was for Amélie and tried to regain her professionalism, but failed. She just wanted her friend back.

Widowmaker's eyes glittered, amber flecked with gold in the low light of the kitchen. "I'm thinking that you're odd. You're much different than even I realized, but somehow, I'm not surprised like I am with Hana. Sometimes, I find myself anticipating your next move without knowing why. I'm deeply… intrigued by you. I'm also thinking about all these… _feelings_." She made a face like the word tasted bad. "I don't find all of them pleasant or convenient - especially this chill. I've never noticed being so… cold before. I can't get warm."

Lena's heart iced over. Her words sounded too familiar to the last time - when she's lost Amélie. "Want me to go get you a jacket?" She set the plate in front of Widowmaker and tore into her own sandwich, wishing she'd had the chips in the other room. The hungry part of her warred with the part deeply unsettled by Widowmaker's familiar words.

Widowmaker paused, looking down at the sandwich. "I assume that this is not your question and is, instead, an offer."

Lena almost missed Widowmaker's lips, curling up in a small, sarcastic smile. _Oh, Amélie…_ Her words felt dry and cracked. She swallowed. "Yeah." She shook her head and tore into another bite. "You gotta promise to behave while I go get one, though."

Widowmaker looked up, the cold, distant gold solidifying in place over the warm amber glow. "Why do you trust me not to escape? It would be easy."

Lena laughed. "Well, love, because you just asked. If you hadn't, I would be moving a lot quicker."

Widowmaker barked a short, strained laugh before she looked around wildly, confused. Lena couldn't help the smile firmly stuck on her face. The chill in her chest thawed again. Being around her was like a whiplash inducing change between frozen winter and warm spring. Lena didn't necessarily dislike it. A small, lavender blush crept over Widowmaker's cheeks and what Lena could see of her exposed chest. Lena tore her eyes away before she stared too long.

"Be right back, love. If you want something to drink other than that, there's cokes and beers in the fridge."

"Do you have wine?" The question seemed innocent enough.

"Yeah. I'll have to get Hana to reach it."

Widowmaker's expression twisted. "Neither of you are tall. I will obtain it if you will allow it."

Lena gave a cautious nod and pointed to the cabinet over the sink. "No funny business. I'll be right back."

After a few minutes of lumbering about, Lena seated herself on the couch with a groan. Widowmaker stood in the kitchen's doorway with two glasses of wine and the bottle, comforter still draped over her shoulders. She looked less like a child and more like royalty with her patchwork cape. Lena propped her leg on the coffee table and motioned to the open space beside her. Widowmaker didn't move for another second before she skirted around the table and sat at the far end of the couch - too far for Lena's tastes.

"I don't bite out of habit, love. You can come closer if you want, that way we aren't having to yell at each other from across the room." She hoped she sounded nonchalant instead of tense. She felt rather tense. Lena thoughtfully forced down her shoulders and tried to appear casual. She could tell rather quickly that it wasn't fooling anyone. She tossed the hoodie over to Widowmaker to break the awkward eye contact.

Widowmaker did not react to Lena's words but instead took a sip from her wine glass and wrinkled her nose. "If I remember correctly, it is my turn to ask a question."

Lena shrugged in defeat. "Yeah, go ahead."

Widowmaker took another sip, less tentatively this time, and pulled the hoodie over her head, still leaving the hood partially obscuring her shiny hair. The hoodie was a cheerful white, with the Overwatch insignia stamped on the upper left. Lena loved that one, but she couldn't exactly wear it in public these days. "Do you know that you scream in your sleep?"

Frost coated Lena's veins and skin. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. "What?"

Widowmaker's eyes glittered in cold calculation. "I take that as a 'no.'"

Nightmares tortured her sleep ever since the accident. Ever since losing Amélie, they had gotten even worse. Lena pinched the bridge of her nose and took a sip of wine. One glass couldn't hurt… She'd only had ibuprofen. "Amélie, please."

"Why do you insist on calling me that?" Widowmaker's voice was deadly quiet and sharp as a knife.

Lena nodded deeply, feeling a little bad about slipping into old habits. "Sorry, love, sometimes you just remind me so much of her." Lena tried to keep her tone light despite the pining in her heart. She yearned so deeply for Amélie, and she was there but was not. She was under the surface, but insidious realization began dawning on her that even if she got Amélie back, she wouldn't be Amélie. That wouldn't stop her, though. She'd do her damndest to get Amélie back in whatever state she could. Changed or not, there was a real person to be saved somewhere inside of all that programming.

Widowmaker stared hard and long for another painful second. Sweat broke out on Lena's neck. The game might be over. "It is your turn."

"Oh, uh. I don't-" She paused and looked over at Widowmaker, who looked at home with her legs folded up under herself, a glass of wine in her hands. She might make or break the tenuously running game between them, but she couldn't pass up the chance. She _had_ to know. "Do you ever remember things that you can't explain?"

Widowmaker paused, pursing her lips and looking over at the window curtain that gently rustled in the heater's breeze. "I remember that I have a cashew allergy. I know I like strawberries." Her warm gaze turned back to Lena. "I remember vague sensations and deep fears. I dream more than I used to." She bit her lip and look down into her glass. "I dream of people and things that I don't understand or know. Sometimes I dream of sitting in a cafe in New York, reading a book and waiting to go to a class. I don't know what class or why, but it feels… real. I remember feelings - missing things that I have never known in this life." She paused, eyes filled with instant regret. "And I don't know why I _want_ to tell you these things. They are _weaknesses_ that you could exploit."

A pang of disappointment caused a grimace to stretch across Lena's face. She took a drink of wine and tried to cover her chagrin. "I wouldn't exploit you."

Widowmaker frowned and leaned forward, the hoodie shirking back slightly and revealing more of her soft hair. "Why do you and Hana Song rely so heavily on one another?"

The question gave Lena whiplash. "Uh, well," she tried to answer intelligently.

Widowmaker raised an eyebrow, her golden eyes sparkling in the lamplight.

"Hana is… well, Hana's my best mate. I'd do anything for her. She helps me out when I need it most, and I trust her with my life. I don't think she needs me as much as I need her, really. Plus, she's the only one who believes me about…" Lena trailed off, uncertain about how to continue.

"About what?" It didn't sound nearly as calculating as she usually did.

"More like 'about who,' love. And if you really want to know, it's Amélie." Lena took the shot in the dark. She'd been holding back that arrow of a statement for so long that it felt a strange relief to have it out of her hands.

Widowmaker looked down and did not look up. She bit her lip and frowned. "It's your turn to ask a question."

Lena rolled her eyes. "Do you have a question that _you_ want to ask _me_?"

Widowmaker did not look up but nodded.

Lena's pulse quickened. Jittery excitement that had nothing to do with caffeine jolted through her. She might have just cracked the shell.

"What can you tell me about her?"

Lena's face went slack, crestfallen. "Who, Hana?"

A genuine giggle came from Widowmaker, a light, cheerful sound contrasting her usual evil chuckle. "No, I mean Amélie."

The fallen emotions surged once more into something nearly tangible as Lena practically bounced with excitement, except she didn't because that would have hurt her leg even worse. "What do you want to know about her?"

Widowmaker pondered the question for a minute. "What kind of person was she?"

Lena rolled her eyes and made a fart noise with her mouth. "That's like asking me to tell you all the plants in a rainforest."

Widowmaker looked down the couch at Lena and scooted a little closer. An entire couch cushion closer, actually. She leaned in like an excited child with a small, thoughtful smile playing on her lips and touching at her eyes.

"She was a warm person-" Lena began before quickly interrupted by Widowmaker.

"Physically?"

Lena giggled, and Widowmaker shifted. "No, I mean her personality was warm. Her hands were always cold, actually. I used to tease her for that. Being around her made you feel like… Made you feel like you were… home. Her laugh made everyone smile. She was patient and kind and always ready to talk. When she worked with the kids at the dance studio, you could really see that she was good at it - teaching and dancing both. Christ, sometimes I would go watch her perform with her dance troupe. I feel like she could have done anything she wanted, but she wanted to stay with Gérard-"

Widowmaker winced and backed away as if Lena had physically slapped her. Her eyes looked pained and her face contorted with grief and anger. "Please don't… say that name…"

Lena reached out to comfort her, and Widowmaker pulled in close on herself instinctively, it seemed, before relaxing enough for Lena to put a hand on her knee. "Are you alright?"

Widowmaker barked a sarcastic laugh. "No, chérie. I am not. It hurts. It should not."

Lena blinked several times. A distant memory of a conversation with Angela crossed her mind. Angela had once said that Widowmaker should not have been able to feel pain. "Does your face hurt?"

Widowmaker did not move, but her expression smoothed over quicker than a buffer going over a rock. "Jesse McCree did damage to my face, but Angela Ziegler made sure it would not do lasting damage."

Lena shook her head, almost frustrated. Widowmaker could never just get to the _point_. "That's not what I asked, Widowmaker."

Widowmaker blinked a few times, herself. "My face?"

"Yeah, the one on your head."

She chewed on her lip a little more. "It's incredibly unpleasant, but I will be fine."

"Do you want Angela to get you some pain medicine?"

Widowmaker frowned enough to get her whole face involved, which must have been at least a little painful. "Why would she do that for me?"

Lena gesticulated but not enough to spill the remaining wine in her glass. "Because you're _hurting_ , you absolute muppet."

Widowmaker's face softened into a compassionate smile. Amélie was almost right there. "Maybe in the morning. I do not wish to break up this game."

Lena nodded cautiously. "Just… don't let me forget to ask, please. I don't want you to be in pain. We could probably sneak you an acetaminophen, if you wanted."

Widowmaker shook her head firmly. "No, I will wait."

Lena nodded. "Well, okay then."

Silence passed comfortably between them. Lena refilled Widowmaker's wine glass before refilling her own. "I've got a question for you, if you don't mind."

Widowmaker tipped her glass in acknowledgement.

"What's your favorite color?"

They both giggled a little. Wine giggles. Widowmaker responded with a smile. "You know, I have no idea. I've never given it any thought." She paused. "What's yours?"

"Blue," said Lena promptly.

Widowmaker nodded. "I should have been able to deduce that from your blue clothes, mug, and kettle."

Lena shrugged. "You weren't looking for it, so maybe that's why you didn't notice." Widowmaker drained her glass much more quickly this time around and asked for another. Lena hesitated. "Don't know if we should get wine drunk on duty. I'm already loose enough for the both of us." She shrugged again and looked up at Widowmaker who was… a lot closer than Lena seemed to have noticed before. She could smell the sweat left over on her skin and the scent of her hair. Unscented shampoo. "I'm a lightweight."

Widowmaker tilted her head. "I apparently used to drink in my past life."

Lena shook her head. "Not more than a glass or two with dinner."

Widowmaker looked over at Lena. "It seems that I remember you from before Talon, but I don't know why. Sometimes I cannot tell if I have dreamed it or if it is real."

"Did you really remember picking strawberries with me, or were you just buying time with McCree?"

Widowmaker let her head roll back, exposing her long neck and pretty throat. Lena looked away before unnecessary thoughts crept back in. She still wasn't Amélie. Even so, Amélie had been happily married. Her quiet voice came out uncertain and wary. "I distantly remember something about a related incident. I remember going into the countryside. I remember someone else being with me. I remember going into a field in the heat of the day and getting terribly sunburned. Someone put aloe on my shoulders when I got back…" She didn't say the word, but even Lena could predict Widowmaker's discomfort in remembering her _home_. "I feel like… all of these things have happened to me, but it feels much more like they happened to someone else - like I just inherited bits of someone else's memories. It's like remembering a video on a screen."

Lena frowned. "I know someone that might be able to help with that, if you get some time alone."

Widowmaker rolled her eyes. "I doubt that the doctor will leave me for more than a moment."

Lena nodded. "True, but if you get some time to talk with Zenyatta, you should. He helps a lot, even if you don't think his 'peace and tranquility' crap works."

Widowmaker's smile softened more than it had all night. Probably the wine. "If the opportunity arises, I will take it." She rubbed her eyes with her non-wine hand. "Lena," Her voice was soft, and Lena felt a blush creep up on her cheeks, probably noticeable. "Would you dance with me?"

Lena laughed. "Got a bum leg. Take a raincheck, love?"

Widowmaker laughed, too. For a second, Lena could see them both sitting back in Amélie's apartment, drinking wine, watching movies, and eating Chinese takeout. There was no war with Talon in that moment. There was no Overwatch displacement. The situation between them vanished, and they were just good friends once more. Widowmaker reached out tentatively to Lena's hand and squeezed it. "Would you…" She got cut off from her own yawn. "I'm very tired from being on watch with my captors. Would you…" She bit her lip.

"You can sleep, if you want. I won't stop you." Lena felt her smile ebb a little more. She knew the night had to end at some point.

Widowmaker shook her head. "Would you at least lay next to me?" She quickly added. "I feel uncomfortable sleeping when someone watches me. Reaper has often watched me in my sleep."

Lena's skin tried to crawl away at the mere thought of Reyes.

"I… feel the same way as well." Widowmaker took Lena's empty glass that sat precariously perched on her stomach. She set them both on the coffee table and pulled Lena's hand, of which she had not let go. Her hands were too cold to be even like Amélie's, but there was a gentle strength in them that felt more like her friend than ever in that sure grip. Widowmaker's hands were rigid and unforgiving. These hands were a mix between the two. "I'll… help you get onto the floor, if you'll allow it."

Lena nodded, feeling a little silly at her racing heart and red face. She didn't trust her words not to be daft. _Grunt. You pretty._

After a few pleasantly awkward minutes, they both lay on the air mattress that took up the majority of the living room. Widowmaker tossed the blanket over both of them, and Lena began feeling immediately sleepy from her fatigue. Her leg hurt her relentlessly. Constant pain made her tired.

"Lena?" Widowmaker's already half asleep voice broke the comfortable silence.

"Yeah?" Lena's voice was dry. She could remember sleeping in the same bed as Amélie a few times, because she had refused to allow Lena to sleep on the couch when Gérard wasn't home. Even then, she had often insisted on Gérard sleeping on the couch. Lena didn't often take that offer.

"Thank you for believing in me." Her voice was quiet, as if speaking any louder would break her entirely.

"Sure thing, love. You can count on me."

In a few moments, a soft, wheezing sound came from Widowmaker. She was fast asleep.

Lena wanted to move to the couch, so Hana wouldn't be too surprised to find her there, literally in bed with the enemy. She swatted at her cell phone enough to finagle it into the tips of her fingers and then into her hand.

 **[11/13 03:26 just letting you know that shes asleep and im literally right next to her]**

 **[11/13 03:26 wtf lena]**

 **[11/13 03:27 she wouldnt sleep on her own!]**

 **[11/13 03:28 youre so fucked if angela sees you]**

 **[11/13 03:28 thats why im telling you asshole]**

 **[11/13 03:29 le sign…]**

 **[11/13 03:29 WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN HANA]**

 **[11/13 03:29 hana what was that sound did you fall]**

 **[11/13 03:30 hana song i s2g…]**

 **[11/13 03:30 i fell out of my chair im sorry]**

 **[11/13 03:30 it means TOO BAD YOU ARE SO FUCKING GAY]**

 **[11/13 03:31 … just wake me before angela rips me another asshole]**

 **[11/13 03:31 roger doger]**

 **[11/13 03:32 thanks love xx]**

Lena set aside her phone, a small smile lighting her face. She closed her eyes, Widowmaker's soft, slow breathing comforting beside her, the heavy blanket warm.

Hope.

 _Real hope._

As she faded into sleep, one final thought echoed through her head like a buzzing broken record.

 _After tonight, the others will see._

 _They'll have to._


	13. This Cold Black

"We have to remedy this situation."

"Italy has gotten out of hand."

"The job is done, and Overwatch just lost half of the southern European countries as potential supporters."

"We have gained a great foothold because of the Widowmaker's actions. Overwatch helped us do our job." The glowing green orb hovering above the conference table stopped pulsing along with the woman's voice. _Vescovi…_

"We're losing purebred supporters because of the civil unrest." The blue orb pulsed white with the owner's sheer volume. _Titshaw..._

One man stood silently at the head of the long conference table. Several of the orbs had not spoken, of course. This matter was simply out of their jurisdiction. _They_ _ **should**_ _stay silent._

"This is a part of Talon's Overwatch division. This should be dealt by them," Jean Titshaw continued.

The man at the end of the table covered his headset's mic and blew out a considerable amount of air from his nose. He could almost _feel_ the skinny man's bones snapping in his hands. Titshaw was _weak_. How could a man so yellow bellied and squeamish have advanced so far into Talon's elite?

"Well, Agent Reaper?" Titshaw demanded.

Reaper tried to shove down the outrage in his voice, but his skin felt like it was crawling off his muscles, ripping at his insides. His very blood boiled in his veins. They couldn't see, and he was almost disappointed that he couldn't look into their horrified eyes. He uncovered his mic and responded in the most level tone he could muster. "I have reviewed all available shots from the tech departments, which they've gathered from various uploads on the Internet. The shot on Tekhartha Zenyatta was nonlethal and only put him offline."

An orange orb, previously unmoved, rippled with a quiet demand. "How long would it take to repair him?"

Reaper felt a smile on his mouth. _Ash_ _Barlow._ He clearly remembered ringing out a wet towel over a naked man's bald head - a former senior counsel member. "Former" by Reaper's hand. He'd struck two clamps together that were wired to a battery. _The screams…_ He still remembered them clear as day, and nearly shuddered with the pleasure of the memory. That had been a man who knew how to _scream_.

Reaper hadn't been in the business of killing without reason, but that man had seen his face. He couldn't leave, then, but that didn't matter. He never had a chance. He'd finally given Reaper that name, _Ash Barlow,_ and Reaper had realized that there was no more information to obtain from this pathetic husk of quivering flesh. This didn't matter either; that morsel was more than he'd been able to dig up in years. He'd pulled out his guns and painted the wall behind the naked man with his brains. What had his name been? Jefferson or something like that…

"It would take at least a few weeks for the best omnic mechanic to repair him. It was sloppy work, and three shots were fired. The other two missed." Rage bubbled again, bursting in hot, volcanic eruptions. Fire coursed through him, the hot agony burning him from the inside out. She shouldn't have _missed_. She never. _Missed._

Barlow's low tone became sarcastic. "Are you having problems with a defective tool?" Their voice struck a perfect midtone. Reaper couldn't quite envision breaking Barlow's neck properly without knowing if they were a man or woman, but it eventually wouldn't matter. His hands closed into fists, knuckles cracking like rapid fire gunshots.

"I'll _fix_ her when she gets back." Reaper could think of plenty of things to do to make her submit to him, but he was above some of those urges. He was above defiling a tool. She'd seen his face, but even she had an expiration date. She wouldn't talk. Tools didn't _think_.

"Her work is sufficient. She is still useful to us. Keep her functional."

It took every straining muscle to keep Reaper from slamming both his fists onto the conference table. It would only hurt for a fraction of a second. He wouldn't even get to bruise. The thought enraged him even more. "Do you copy, Agent Reaper?" Barlow's voice _taunted_ him.

"I copy." His voice sounded rough to his own ears and knew that it couldn't improve his standing among Talon's elite. He hated the head of Talon, and it wasn't the remaining Blackwatch in his system. That man, Gabriel Reyes, had died a long time ago. He hated them because they were willing to let such _inconsistencies_ whittle holes in their regime. They'd been so tight ship only to fall so far as their empire expanded.

Talon was focusing too much on taking over governments, on rule with an iron fist, rather than letting the people decide. Government would follow the people, and one stronghold of devout believers would spread like a virus to the rest of the world. A vicious sandstorm began brewing within him, ready to chip away at his mind and resolve and ready to wear him down. He _hated_ what he'd become. He knew exactly who to blame. _Angela Ziegler._ He hated anyone like him, anyone who had had their humanity _ripped_ from them. They weren't _free_. They were dead men walking. They _deserved_ to _die_.

Elena Vescovi's voice broke the tense silence. "Talon has many supporters in Italy's Senate of the Republic and the Chamber of Deputies. The Prime Minister is already heavily leaning in Talon's favor."

 _Italy's own President Vescovi..._

No one was safe from the long arm of Talon. No one else, though, could see the syphilitic sickness that ate away at the top of the top. Weakness. _Leniency. "Good enough."_

So much had changed since he had first joined. He stayed silent through the stats portion while three other voices chattered away pointlessly. Corporate meetings… Reaper thought he'd escaped those by escaping his past life. Obviously not. He was just ready for this meeting to be _over_.

Bullshit bureaucracy.

The different colored orbs pulsed in varying values and saturations. In any other instance, it might have drawn his eye to watch them flicker and dance and change, but this was work. This was war. This was some bullshit excuse to sit around and think for too long with too little action being taken. Just like Overwatch so Talon had become.

Barlow's unruffled orange orb pulsed, cutting off two other bickering members of the counsel. Titshaw the Spineless and Gerlsma the War Worthy. Gerlsma was a good ally for Reaper. He, too, hated this circlejerk.

"Our meeting is getting out of hand. We cannot afford to bicker amongst ourselves. We are at a _tipping point_." Their voice stayed level and controlled. Reaper could hear the undertones of discomfort, though. The smile on his face returned. Beautiful weakness. Barlow didn't trust their counterparts, but then again, that was evident enough by everyone staying anonymous and rattling off their numbers. They called him Agent Reaper. They were trying to intimidate him by using his codename, telling him that they knew who he was. _Joke's on them, though._ Reaper suppressed a hideous laugh. _I know_ _ **who**_ _they are. I know_ _ **where**_ _they are. I wonder if Vescovi believes that ratty mutt of hers will keep her safe from people like me when the time comes._

Except Barlow. But even they were not completely safe. Not for long.

Barlow continued. "We will discuss this matter at a later date. Everyone, take care of yourselves." It wasn't a statement of concern; it was a threat.

Barlow's orange sphere blinked away, followed by the other eleven orbs. Reaper was the last to tap on the glowing blue panel in front of him and disable his own orb on others' conference tables. The lights in the room came up on their own, illuminating softly the surrounding soundproof room. The garish maroon of his conference chair was the same color as the decor that spotted the corners and walls of the otherwise beige room. Reaper closely inspected an inconspicuous painting. It was probably bugged. In snarling rage, he ripped the painting from the wall, shattering the gold painted frame. A small, black mic nestled just on the inside of the frame.

 _Such shoddy work…_

He kicked it out of his way and walked to the door, carpet muffling his large, clunking boots. He pulled his balaclava over the lower part of his face and unfastened his mask from his belt. He wasn't going to be seen by such _lessers_. He unlatched the door and pushed out into the warehouse. Warehouse was a selective term.

The sprawling mess 200 feet below him presented a warehouse type atmosphere but much larger. Much more like a stadium than a place for inanimate things and milling workers. Three different platoons passed below as Reaper watched over the railing. No one without proper access would be able to reach this floor. The men below him looked like ants marching. Mindless and feeble, waiting for a boot to crush them, but even ants could band together and be a formidable force, Reaper supposed. Bullet ants and fire ants, for example. He shook his head. No point in thinking about how to use them. Yet.

Another higher up, leader of the flight division walked by, nodding acknowledgement to Reaper. Another ally.

Reaper had more allies than enemies.

Somewhere, the senior counsel members walked around in plain sight. He knew their faces, now, but he treated them as if he did not know. He needed to wait for the proper time to strike.

He walked briskly down the open hall to an elevator. He hit the button to go to the main floor and paused, quickly smashing the button to special agents' quarters. _His_ Widowmaker's quarters. The others would be on other floors and completely kept from coming in contact with another. He paused a moment before continuing down the hall to his Widowmaker's quarters. He should go check on the other Widowmakers to make sure that they weren't experiencing any defects like his own. The other special operations leaders would not respect him if he didn't keep his tools in line.

He clomped off in the direction of his missing renegade's room. He had access to almost all the floors and rooms in Talon's headquarters. He'd seen the other special operations guys, and they didn't have nearly the free reign that he did. That served him well in obtaining and maintaining his allies. The other special operations leaders respected Reaper for being so close to Talon's elite, and more often than not, regarded him as their superior. That would make the future regime shift easier. Except for, again, his rowdy Widowmaker.

Why were her shots so _sloppy_? Who did she think she _was_? Did she think she could _afford_ to miss?

The swiped his near-universal access card through the reader, which blinked green. He walked in. Maybe he had coddled her too much. Maybe he needed to really crack down on her readjustments and neural conditioning.

No, that would only break her and dispose of one of his greatest weapons. She could not fight if she was a vegetable. From the look in her eyes last time he'd adjusted her programming, for a moment, he thought that he'd done it, but she responded plainly and simply. As her programming told her to do.

He repeated the mantra to her so often that "Talon is home." "Talon is right and just." "Do not ask questions. It is not your job to ask questions." He'd personally programmed her loyalty long before squelching her curiosity, which was probably a flaw in her programming, but then again, she was just a machine. She would eventually break down. Her nonexistent metabolism, as long as she survived solely off the nutrient paste, would not heal her wounds and would eventually make it where she couldn't recover from a papercut. She wouldn't last without Talon's medical help unless… Reaper angrily shook his head and walked into his Widowmaker's room. She had an expiration date. She was nothing to worry about. Yet.

Her room was, from what he could tell, even less furnished than other Widowmakers. Reaper thought many _things_ were unnecessary, especially considering her past life, but now she'd been reincarnated into something else. Something new and dangerous and wholly _his_. When he told her something was unnecessary, she cut it from her existence as if she never needed it. At one point, he'd almost told her to cut her hair just to watch her rip a part of herself away, because her inhuman nature demanded that she follow his orders, but his own personal enjoyment of using her hair as a handle when she needed it would have suffered.

Deep seated pleasure made him shudder at watching her dispose of all of her excess - her clothing, for one, save for two spare issued outfits and her catsuit. He'd made her throw out her sheets and pillow and comforter. She'd thrown out her mirror and vanity on her own, calling them unnecessary. He almost found himself angry that he'd missed it.

Oftentimes, he would creep into her room when she would sleep once a week and stand over her to let her know that she was always being watched, but she would never know when. Sometimes, he would wait months and then appear over her just before waking. Sometimes, he would do it several weeks in a row. When she first arrived covered in _Gérard Lacroix_ 's blood, he spent night after night pushing her to her limits in combat training with him, and also trying to kill her in her sleep. He would only give her about sixty seconds before unfortunate demise was inevitable. She needed to be fast, diligent, and always ready. Talon did not have time nor place for the weak or faint hearted.

Talon accepted only the most cold, calculating, intelligent _humans_ to work in their task force. Sometimes, they would sacrifice one of their members or scout for a decent qualifier to experiment on, but they were trying to steer away from creating something _less_ than human. Reaper felt his skin start ripping, causing waves of searing agony to ripple through his bones and flesh. Every nerve felt like it had been dipped in molten metal and cooled all too quickly. He felt like he was warping from the inside.

The room blurred red before settling back into its dull grey hues. On the bed, he noticed, was the file on Tekhartha Zenyatta. Maybe the file could give him some indication of where his Widowmaker had gone. Her cuff had been abandoned in the Palace Gardens in Venice, near the drop site. It was not only too dangerous to go in to find her, but another problem posed its own obstacle. Without her cuff with its tracking device, they couldn't know for sure where she had gone. She might just be laying low, or she might have been captured. She might have even been killed.

He flipped open to the first page. Nothing stood out terribly - just a briefing on Zenyatta's habits and potential areas, weaknesses, and associates. Pictures of his associates were attached to the second page, and a deep, strange feeling pulled at Reaper's insides. Jesse McCree, smiling and smoking as usual, stood among a crowd of people. He made no particular effort not to be seen with Zenyatta. Reaper closed his eyes and took a deep breath. That was his past life. He no longer knew Jesse McCree as anything other than a target. He flipped the page to find all the notes on the Overwatch agents most likely to go to Italy. Rage washed over him once again.

Angela Ziegler.

Reaper could feel her bones crunching under his fists. He wouldn't bother even using his weapons or his abilities. His hands would be enough to choke the life out of her, to feel her neck snap beneath his rippling fingers. Her hot breath on his face, fading to nothing as he closed her windpipe for the final time. Those pretty pink lips of hers gasping for air like a fish out of water, mouthing _please don't, please, Gabriel, please._ The imagined use of his old name only made the rage build, and he could _feel_ himself squeeze harder, squeeze until blood ran from her eyes and her oh-so-smooth white cheeks turned a deep purple. Oh, yes. He wanted it close. He wanted it _personal_. He would watch the life leave her eyes. He would watch her _die_.

And he would relish every second.

He knew that there was the question of what he would do after killing her, but he would just figure that out when it came down to it. He knew how she felt under his hands. He knew how her soft skin would give under his thumbs. He memorized the curve of her jaw and the fragile line of her dainty nose.

He would crush her. He would destroy her angelic beauty.

She had destroyed him, so why shouldn't he get to do the same? Paid in full.

He tore his eyes from her familiar smile and tender bow of her lips.

The next picture made him writhe a little less than the Good Doctor's. Winston. He never knew how something so… bestial could function with actual human beings. It sickened him. That animal never had a chance. It had its nature stripped from it and replaced with something all too unnatural for it. He moved his eyes along. Hana Song. Boring child.

His gaze locked onto Tracer's - Lena Oxton's picture slot, from which the picture had been removed. Reaper felt his eyes narrow. His Widowmaker had been awfully interested in this waif of an agent. It would probably be best to remove her eventually, but there were more pressing targets to eliminate. His Widowmaker had made a mistake - the first mistake - by leaving her alive. The girl could have died from shock, and no one would have known. Then again, he understood why Widowmaker had made her call despite it not being her call to make. It was not part of her mission.

Another cross thought entered his tumultuous mind. She'd never spared anyone in her path before. This could be some strategy to smoke out the agents, but that would mean she was _thinking_. No, it was merely a mistake.

A mistake that could not happen again. _Would not_ happen again

He would fix it later.

Oh, that was the highlight of his week. He loved to hear her scream. She did not beg like some sniveling whep. She screamed in pain. In fury. He could see the anger in her eyes. He liked her. Too bad that she was just a tool. A pawn.

Expendable.

Reaper flipped back to Angela's picture and removed it from the folder's paperclip. He tucked it into his undershirt's pocket. He would not forget his origins. Nor would he forget who made him this way.

He threw the folder back onto the naked bed and turned. He left his Widowmaker's room to go appraise his underlings' weapons - _their_ Widowmakers.

The next hour passed slowly, examining arms and legs. Turning their heads and checking their eyes, teeth, and hair. Most of them had short hair to prevent any unnecessary tangling. He would occasionally press on too lean stomachs, turning them away for removal or development. That was not his call. None of them were as pure as his Widowmaker. None so unwavering.

He left afterward, knowing that three of the five Widowmakers would go rogue within a few months. He could see it in their eyes. Feel their unrest in his bones. They could never be as loyal or as devout as _his_ Widowmaker.

Unrest gathered in his chest. Appraising Widowmakers should have preoccupied him enough, but the burning photograph against his chest made his mind wander. His body followed.

He roved the corridors for no particular reason, simply to preoccupy his thoughts. People avoided his gaze if they could. It made him smile, but they could not see. Somehow that just made it better.

Reaper wandered lower and lower in the complex, vaguely thinking about how much like a city this sprawl of a headquarters seemed. So deep under the ground. So hidden in a frozen wasteland. He often wandered when not preoccupied with a mission or counsel meeting. Recruits of all seniority often murmured about how he had a tendency to appear when you least expected. Everyone needed to be on their best behavior at all times just in case Reaper showed up.

He wandered onto the main floor of the common area, taking a back hallway toward the cafeteria. One of the newest batches of recruits made too much noise for him to actually go in, but he watched from the back door. He didn't actually watch, but with the mask, no one could know he was deeper in thought than his interest in the underlings. Hazy recognition clicked into place through his own internal monologue when he noted their armbands - the signifiers for whose grunts they were. They were his. He looked a little more closely, then.

Reaper recognized a few faces, and they noticed his presence after a few minutes. That's when he decided to leave. He didn't want to give the new recruits any ideas. He didn't want to linger in case he thought that he took particular interest in them. He'd only just recently had to kill off an entire platoon for abandoning their mission in Drachten in favor of going drinking. Absorbing them made him feel a little better - a little less like he was a weak gravity field tenuously holding his atoms close together in the form of a person.

He wandered away. On no particular place did he set his course, but he went anyway.

Lost in thought, he nearly trampled one of the recruits from the new platoon. Talon recruited so many so often that Reaper often sorted out his own after rigorously analyzing their strengths, weaknesses, and loyalty. Talon would never choose someone who wasn't completely devoted to their cause, but even so, Reaper wanted to be _extra_ sure that his soldiers would be the _most_ loyal and the _most_ reliable when the time came to overthrow the current leaders.

"S-sorry, Reaper, sir!" The recruit saluted.

 _Weakness_ … Reaper visibly tilted his head but said nothing for a long moment. He could start to see the sweat forming on the kid's upper lip. _Christ, he's barely out of his fucking diapers_.

"What are you doing without the rest of your group?" The bubbling suspicion laid low in his tone, but he could scarcely contain his laughter at such discomfort.

"Latrine, sir." The answer was short but sure. A lot less ashamed.

Reaper nodded, slight admiration touching at his words. Not everyone could recover as quickly as the new kid. "You're with your group for a reason, soldier. I suggest you get back to them."

"Right, sir." The kid started walking, and one he got past Reaper, turned his body slightly to where he didn't have his back squarely facing Reaper. He paused, turning his head over his shoulder. "When're you putting a hit out on that bitch Ziegler? We'd all love to be the one that got the chance."

Reaper felt his neck strain and his neck pop before he realized he'd turned his head almost to a ninety degree angle. The burning rage boiled over and flooded his senses like when he'd seen _her_ in the field. No one could say that name. No one had the right.

But _fuck_ if he didn't _like_ that one.

"Listen, son." Reaper felt himself purr the words, almost ingratiating himself. He wanted the kid's guard down. "Why don't you get the boys and come to the Middle Ground? I'd like to brief you all on some things…"

Reaper didn't wait for a response. He turned on his heel and headed for the open meeting place, snapping at one of his second tier grunts to set up thirty nine folding chairs. One was to sit a little farther back than the others. The rage hadn't settled but instead turned into a blazing white pinpoint focus on one target. He could focus his rage when necessary. It took a considerable amount of effort most times. Most times except when Angela Ziegler was involved.

He stood and waited while the grunt unfolded metalized plastic chairs. He did not turn when the new recruits filed in, led by their squadron leader - another of Reaper's group but much higher on his list of trusted allies. He walked up beside Reaper and did not speak. Reaper smiled within his mask. He liked Johanson. Johanson didn't ask questions. He simply obeyed.

Johanson, after signaling his approach, brought the kid who had spoken in the hall. Reaper fought his desires a little longer and roughly gestured to the chair just marring the circle's neat edge. All other recruits followed suit.

Once everyone took their seats, Reaper felt his knuckles popping from gripping his other hand too tightly behind his back. He did not loosen his grip. Loosening his grip would mean his hands would be free, and he wasn't going to be responsible for what they would do.

"I feel as if we might have some things we need to cover." He took a breath, drawing out the pained expressions on their faces. Some cringed when he spoke. Some were stoic and intent. He needed to remember the latter. "Most of you are good men. Remember that before we begin. You've each been hand-chosen, by me, to be the best of the best. The fastest. The strongest. The most loyal."

There was quiet chatter among the recruits. This kind of praise, coming from the dreaded Reaper? It was almost unheard of. He'd been known to dole out encouragements to the very best, rarely, but to all forty of them?

Normally, Reaper might have screamed at the gaggle of idiots to quiet their yammering. For now, though, he let them have this moment.

"Of course," he began, and the grunts quickly settled down, "there are… certain things we need to discuss." His knuckles popped again, loudly, and he could feel the sweet agony under his mask as his skin boiled. He lowered his grizzled voice to barely a whisper. "There are certain things that are _off limits_."

With a snap, he raised a hand toward his audience. "You."

The kid he'd met in the hallway looked around, gulped, and scuttled to his feet. "Y-yessir?"

Reaper pointed at the ground by his side.

The kid hesitated for the briefest of moments before walking slowly up to join his commanding officer. His footsteps echoed in the silent room.

With the hand he'd used to gesture, Reaper gripped the kid's shoulder, hard, but no harder than one would greeting an old friend. "Tell the other children your name," he purred.

The kid swallowed again. "A-Alex, sir."

"Don't tell me. Tell _them."_

He looked out at the small crowd, and a rivulet of sweat ran down his cheek. "M-my name is Alex. Alex J-Jamison."

The rest of the grunts were dead silent.

Reaper was quiet for a long few moments as well. Just when the tension was clearly growing unbearable, he drew the photograph from his pocket with his free hand and held it out to the kid. "Tell me what this is, Alex."

Alex took it gingerly, looking down at it. "I-it's…" He cleared his throat, and his voice strengthened a little. "It's a photograph. Angela Ziegler. The doctor bi…" His eyes flicked nervously to Reaper and back. "The doctor. W-We think she's their acting leader."

The hand on Alex's shoulder tightened like a vice. "Why don't you show the class, Alex?" His voice was still calm, but the way he said that name…

Alex shivered and slowly turned the photograph around, displaying it to the rest of the grunts. It was a picture they'd all seen before; they were all familiar with the remaining members of Overwatch. One recruit, near the back, opened her mouth as if to speak, then seemed to think better of it.

"Angela Ziegler." Reaper spoke like a teacher lecturing his students. "Thirty seven years old. A brilliant doctor. When it comes to medicine, perhaps the best in the world." As furious as he was, he couldn't keep a touch of… something else from his voice. Sentimentality, perhaps? He had very few soft points left. "She is a good person. Better than any of you. And yes, she needs to die, because she is a threat. I look down at all of you. I see the fear in your eyes when you look at me. 'What is he doing?' I see you all wondering. You're afraid. Every last one of you. It's true. I am a monster. You are _right_ to fear me. But as monstrous as I am?" He took a slow, shuddering breath. His voice was gaining passion, anger as he spoke. He forced it down. Forced himself to sound calm. For just a moment longer. "That is nothing compared to the horrors she has brought into this world."

Alex seemed to be relaxing. Reaper could almost read his pathetic mind. The boss was angry, but not at us. I'm going to be fine.

The thought filled Reaper with equal parts savage joy, delicious anticipation, and infernal rage.

"But the thing you must know, above all else," he said gently. He released Alex's shoulder, then ruffled what little hair the kid had. "Do you know what that is?"

The kid had one chance. Reaper could almost feel the seconds tick away in his head.

 _one._

 _two._

 _three._

Alex looked back and forth from the crowd to Reaper, then broke out into a huge grin. He thought he understood. "She's our most important target! Sir!"

The ticking clock ticked to a halt.

Silence.

Reaper exhaled slowly, as if thinking. His mind, however, was already made up.

In one swift motion, Reaper reached into his cloak and pulled out a pistol-grip shotgun, which he aimed one handed at the back of Alex's knee. "She is _mine!"_ he roared, and pulled the trigger.

A _boom_ like a cannon filled the room, and Alex's knee simply disintegrated in a spray of hot blood and chips of bone. He screamed, a high, piercing squeal of surprise that was _music_ to Reaper's ears at the same time that it colored his vision red, as it harmonized with his rippling skin to amplify the pain inside him. Blood splattered the first row of grunts, and everyone in the room shouted and made as if to rise, but only a few were foolish enough to actually stand. Even those were smart enough not to interfere.

" _Angela Ziegler is_ _ **MINE!**_ " Reaper let all the hate and anger and jealousy inside him build and build and build, letting it deep into his voice and his hands and his body. The rage only made the agony worse, but God, in that moment it felt so _good._ Before Alex had time to even hit the ground, he pulled the trigger again, and a melon-sized chunk of flesh from his other leg exploded outward, exposing shattered bone to the open air.

At the second blast, the room went silent again; silent but for the growing screams of agony from the recruit on the floor, bleeding out from both legs. Reaper could not sympathize. He was in agony every moment of his life, and this child?

Until this moment, Alex Jamison had not known pain.

Reaper considered that a gift.

Alex flopped feebly, reaching weakly for someone, anyone in the crowd to help him. His eyes were rolling back in his head, his face growing pale. He was losing blood, fast. "Please…." Was the only audible word he could choke out. None of the other grunts dared to move.

 _Please_ , _Gabriel._ Behind his mask, Reaper gritted his teeth, then roared. He swung the shotgun down like a baseball bat, and cracks filled the room as ribs shattered. Again and again. Each time, Alex's screams grew a little quieter.

Finally, all that was left was a quiet gurgling noise. His eyes, though… His eyes still begged for mercy.

Finally, Reaper took the bloody gun in his hands, pointed it down at Alex's forehead, and blew his head off.

Finally, there was silence. The quiet drip drip drip of blood. Reaper looked down. There was a splash of brain on his boot. Something to remember to clean off.

He looked up at the silent, horrified recruits. "Remember that," he growled softly. "When the day comes and Overwatch finally falls, you will remember that her life is _mine._ " He cocked his head dismissively. "Now clean this up."

He swept out of the room, leaving the stunned crowd behind him. They would learn. They had no choice. Or they would all be made examples of.

* * *

"Agent Reaper, I will not question your actions this evening. It seems that even you are against unnecessary loss of pure life." Barlow's ambiguous voice droned from its gently pulsing orange sphere in the conference room where Reaper had been held captive earlier that day. They seemed to speak in a slightly lilting fashion, completely unmarred by casual speech. All business. "If you deemed an example be made, then I must agree with your decision. We _cannot_ have rogue recruits."

Reaper rolled his eyes and breathed heavily through his nose. His eyes flicked to the right hand wall. The broken painting had been removed and replaced. _Of course. They have eyes and ears everywhere..._

A sigh from the sphere almost made him laugh. Barlow didn't want to be here either. Their tone became more hushed and guarded, but not from him, he thought momentarily. "This is just a formality, Agent Reaper. By order, you acted out of bounds."

Reaper felt his voice come out dry and harsh like large grit sand beating on exposed skin. "He was out of line."

Barlow paused. "Given the records, I agree. The other council members, however, deemed your actions unnecessary and reckless."

He could feel what they were trying to do - ebb his confidence in his allies. He didn't put much stock in it, but he didn't ignore it altogether.

Barlow resumed their business tone, more loudly than just before. "I am switching to a different line. You will receive a call from me in five minutes. Answer."

Barlow's line disconnected.

Astonished silence fell over him for just a moment. He was getting closer than ever before to Barlow. This phone call could begin unraveling the mystery to their identity.

He left the room intact this time.

Five agonizingly long minutes passed. His comm line plinked, alerting an incoming call. He tapped his ear. "I'm listening." He tried to make his voice sound bored instead of frothing and eager.

"The line wasn't secure. I've temporarily disabled listeners in on the line."

Reaper stopped his pacing down a hall and looked around. There would be cameras here but no mics. Good. Vaguely, he realized this was the first time he'd ever heard Barlow sound anything other than rigidly business. Contractions? Unheard of.

"Do you _copy_ Agent Reaper?" Their voice seethed with unfettered anger. Rage that Reaper, himself, knew well. Barlow was someone like him.

"I copy. Now, what do you want?"

"If I had more time, I'd make you pay for such _insolence._ We don't have the time, though, so let's get down to it. We must retrieve your Widowmaker. It's far too great an asset to be missing. Its tracking device is _useless,_ unless we want to detonate it. Tragic, but potentially necessary."

A shiver coursed down Reaper's spine. Oh, _God_ , had he wanted to detonate his Widowmaker, but that would render her uncontrollable afterward. "It's too great a risk, for now."

"Three days, Reyes. It's been gone for three _days_."

A hot flash of anger spouted up, showering him in scarce containable fury. Who thought they could just _say_ that dead man's _name_? That cold, dead name. He could remember an angel reaching down to his face, smiling - her hands cool on his sweaty face. _Gabriel_... It cooled his anger for a moment and gave him reprieve before tossing more coal on the fires of his heart. His agony. The stabbing in his chest.

"That's enough," he growled. He'd just gone against his superior. To lessen the damage, he added, "What do you suggest?"

Barlow's amused, smug voice came over the line. "Get someone to go get it."

Reaper's flesh rippled and writhed. He didn't like taking orders so ambiguous. Everything about Barlow felt ambiguous. Dawning realization came upon him. Overwatch had been backed into a corner. They were still in Italy, which meant… "If I may attend to some business…"

"By all means, Agent Reaper."

"I will go and retrieve the Widowmaker."


	14. Angela

Angela Ziegler woke again with a start, covered in chills with sweat running down her spine. She couldn't stop seeing them all dead, her ability to revive rendered ineffective. She sat up, clenching her head in her hands. Warm, sure hands settled on her shoulders.

"Angela…" Fareeha's soft voice broke through the sleep fog. The phantom fingers clawing at her skin faded but did not completely vanish. "Are you alright?"

Angela looked from the dark space created by her hands. Fareeha leaned in and looked into Angela's eyes. It was still dark out, but Angela could see the worry in Fareeha's… everything. Her posture was rigid but guarding. Her dark eyes searching with care. Eyes that could be so cold, so calculating in battle. Fareeha's hands gently pulled Angela's own away and into a reassuring embrace. She was so warm…

Angela felt the dead fingers scrape at her throat. Nausea led to churning waves in her stomach. She couldn't get away.

"Angela," Fareeha quietly urged, drawing nearer and wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

"Sorry, sorry. I… had some nightmares." She hesitated. "I'm fine now."

Fareeha's gentle scoff brought ease to Angela's growing panic. The ringing in her ears sounded too much like a flatlining heart monitor. "'I'm fine now,' she says as she's in a cold sweat." A gentle squeeze. "Talk to me."

"Just some bad dreams, Fareeha." Her own voice sounded stressed. It was the stress. She hadn't been sleeping enough. Even Genji, someone who wasn't the most observant, could tell that she hadn't been sleeping in her off time. He'd offered to pull a double shift for the day. In all honesty, Angela _wanted_ to immerse herself in her work. The dreams had gotten so bad since Lena was shot, but she'd made an agreement with Genji for him to work an eight hour shift and take one off. They were trying to go at a breakneck pace to fix Zenyatta, but if they both were too tired, they couldn't perform at their top capacities. There was more to that, though… A particular young woman and her spider companion.

Angela spared another glance at Fareeha, whose eyes had not moved. Fareeha said nothing, but relief washed over Angela like a much needed hot bath on aching bones. "I keep seeing everyone…" _Dead_. _Stabbed. Destroyed._ "Past where I can help them. Where I can't bring them back anymore."

Fareeha scooted closer and wrapped her arms tighter around Angela's body, her prosthetics neither warm nor cold. She rested her cheek on Angela's shoulder, the ear that retained more hearing capacity than the other turned toward Angela's face. "You started crying in your sleep. You were talking about him again."

Comfortable silence fell between them. Angela pushed out all thoughts that weren't about Fareeha, for the moment, cherishing the smooth, warm skin against her own - feeling grounded by the strong arms surrounding her in a protective embrace. Soft, sleepy breaths warmed her shoulder only to be cooled again by the inhale. Fareeha's hair smelled like the cinnamon-apple shampoo she most preferred. A stray hair tickled Angela's nose, but she dared not move for fear that Fareeha would also move.

"With _her_ here, it's hard not to think of him." Angela didn't raise her voice above a whispered whisper, barely audible.

Fareeha nodded, the cool beads touching Angela's feverishly hot skin. "Do you need me to get you something?"

Angela side eyed the large woman, though she knew Fareeha could not see the look. Fareeha was suggesting sleeping medication again. A deep, aching longing for extended rest almost pushed her to nod, but her absolute resolve against taking medications won over once more… But _God_ she needed sleep.

"No, I might just go make myself some tea." Angela began to shift, and Fareeha moved. "Lena and Hana are on the job tonight, so it shouldn't be an issue." Really… Just Lena.

The 'issue" referred to the night before when she'd walked through to go to the bathroom and got roped into a painful conversation with Jesse. He'd wanted to talk about Old Times. He'd had a few beers. Jesse talked too much when he drank more than half a beer. He acted like some big tough guy who could handle himself, but he really got tipsy just sniffing alcohol. Sometimes, Angela wondered, he seemed friendlier when he was drunk than when he was sober.

The conversation just brought up memories she'd try to forget. He'd also said those things in front of their prisoner. Tightness seized Angela's chest viciously. Her hand clutched at her shirt subconsciously.

"I'm gonna… go." Angela swung her legs out of bed a little too quickly to be casual. She saw Fareeha start moving, ready to follow. "No, it's alright." The creases on Fareeha's forehead showed heart-stabbing doubt. Angela sighed. "If I'm not back in about thirty minutes, come looking."

Fareeha nodded quickly and hunkered back down in the covers. Angela cracked the door, a shaft of light falling on Fareeha's face. She scrunched her nose and cracked open an eye. She gave a small, stunning smile before rolling back over, away from the door. Angela slipped out quietly, turning the knob and closing the door before turning it back in place.

Quiet voices met her ears. Apparently, no one had heard her leave her room. She remained outside her door for a long moment, considering whether or not to break the conversation.

"It seems that I remember you from before Talon, but I don't know why. Sometimes I cannot tell if I have dreamed it or if it is real." It was Widowmaker's voice, but somehow nothing like how she usually sounded when answering questions. Her voice seemed tentative - curious and frightened.

"Did you really remember picking strawberries with me, or were you just buying time with McCree?" Lena's voice was quieter than usual. She must have been getting sleepy.

There was a long, uncertain pause. Angela was almost certain that she heard Lena choking on her drink. "I distantly remember something about a related incident. I remember going into the countryside. I remember someone else being with me. I remember going into a field in the heat of the day and getting terribly sunburned. Someone put aloe on my shoulders when I got back…" Another pause. "I feel like… all of these things have happened to me, but it feels much more like they happened to someone else - like I just inherited bits of someone else's memories. It's like remembering a video on a screen."

Angela's heart panged again. The sadness in Widowmaker's voice was almost palpable. Lena took less than a few seconds to reply. "I know someone that might be able to help with that, if you get some time alone."

A soft snort. "I doubt that the doctor will leave me for more than a moment."

A flash of anger raged up like smoking oil in a pan. Too easily caught aflame and too unpredictable. A few deep breaths helped her calm herself. Resentment built up even stronger. She'd _helped_ Widowmaker and put her face back together. She'd made sure that Widowmaker wouldn't die, and then Widowmaker insisted on being difficult.

But then, Fareeha had made her do her job, hadn't she?

Lena's slightly slurred voice broke her roiling train of thought, dousing the flame instantly, which allowed the fatigue to roll back in. "True, but if you get some time to talk with Zenyatta, you should. He helps a lot, even if you don't think his 'peace and tranquility' crap works." Angela clapped a hand over her mouth quietly in an effort not to bark a laugh at Lena's impersonation. She could almost see the way Lena would try to make the tranquil face and invariably end up looking like a basset hound.

The rollercoaster of emotions immediately derailed as a familiar, soft, caring voice chimed in like another person had entered the room. _Amélie._ "If the opportunity arises, I will take it." A pause came before an even softer inquiry. "Lena, would you dance with me?"

Angela could hear Lena snort through her nose before giggling. In her mind, Angela could see the blush on Lena's face all too well. "Got a bum leg. Take a raincheck, love?"

The laugh that Angela had heard so many times from the other side of Gérard's phone caught her off guard, the corners of her eyes prickling. "Would you…" Amélie yawned, and Angela missed her friend. She'd been relatively close to Gérard, often put on the same missions with him and dragging his wounded ass back to a safe place. She'd watched over him diligently, but it still hadn't been enough. She let his wife kill him. Widowmaker's voice came from around the corner. "I'm very tired from being on watch with my captors. Would you…"

"You can sleep, if you want. I won't stop you." Angela noticed the tints of sadness and disappointment that colored Lena's seemingly cheerful words. Another deep ache coursed through her bones. She'd not been fair to the other two on the team that meant the most to her - Lena and Hana. She didn't want to treat them as children, but _god_ , they were so idealistic. They should be trusted, but at what cost? She knew that idealism could get in the way. She'd been that way when Reyes...

A pause of conversation. "Would you at least lay next to me?" Angela felt her nostrils flare. There was no way Lena could resist. She could _imagine_ Amélie saying those words to Gérard just before murdering him. "I feel uncomfortable sleeping when someone watches me. Reaper has often watched me in my sleep."

A sound that Angela was almost sure Lena had no idea she'd made reached her ears. It sounded like a mix between an _ew_ and an _ugh_.

 _Reaper… Gabriel… Had he always been that monster, deep down? Did he watch me, the way he watches her? Or did I made him that way?_ Complex emotions she didn't want to dwell on swirled nauseatingly inside her belly, and she forced them away. Now was not the time. She was too busy eavesdropping to deal with _those_ emotions.

Widowmaker snorted softly. "I… feel the same way as well. I'll… help you get onto the floor, if you'll allow it."

Lena must have obliged because after a few seconds, shifting plastic on carpet reached Angela's ears - the air mattress. Angela felt a burst of fear cause her to take two steps. She would _not_ have another Gérard on her hands, but hushed words stopped her approach.

"Lena?" Amélie asked.

"Yeah?" From what Angela could hear, Lena was already mostly asleep.

"Thank you for believing in me." Amélie's voice was tentative, searching, and still frightened, but she sounded like she was less afraid than before - maybe even comforted.

"Sure thing, love. You can count on me."

White noise filled Angela's head for a few seconds. She couldn't quite understand what had just happened. Something in her chest cracked - maybe not literally, but it sure fooled her for a long minute. She took two steps back and leaned against her own closed door before sliding down, tears welling again and overflowing. _Amélie._

Amélie was still there, somewhere, and she was hurting. Inexorable guilt drowned her momentarily, choking out air and any other feeling than her head swimming. Amélie was still _in there_ , and Angela hadn't seen it. The tears quit her eyes shortly after spilling. What if it was all an elaborate ruse? An assassination attempt.

No. That had clearly been Amélie. Which meant…

Angela Ziegler took a shaking breath.

Which meant that Angela had allowed whatever was left of Amélie to suffer while hating her for Talon's hand in her life.

 _She's just like_ _ **him**_ , one part of her snarled. _She's never coming back._

Another part whispered, more faintly than her first thought. _But what if…?_

Had that meant that Amélie had been present throughout the time they viewed her as Widowmaker? Had that meant that she was complacent? Was she fighting? Or was this who she was now? She didn't quite sound like Amélie, and she sure as hell didn't sound like Widowmaker.

Angela felt sick to her stomach. She couldn't go get herself anything to drink. She couldn't _bear_ to see Lena next to that _thing_ with Amélie's face. Somewhere, deep down, she thought that she couldn't bear to see Amélie at all.

Angela noticed Hana's open door, lamplight streaming out. Hana was still awake and alert, it seemed, from the clack of keys on the keyboard. Angela hadn't shown her trust in Hana like she wanted. So many layers of guilt nagged at Angela's tired eyes.

Guilt over Hana.

Guilt over Lena.

Guilt over Gabriel Reyes.

Guilt over Gérard Lacroix.

Guilt over Amélie.

Guilt, guilt, guilt.

Cold panic gripped her fingers and stabbed at her stomach as the door fell out from behind her. Since she'd been leaning on it, she tumbled backward in the most undignified fashion. The back of her head clacked against the ground firmly and bounced. She looked up at Fareeha's strong body and horrified face. She covered her mouth with a hand, eyes wide. Angela put a finger on her lips, slightly fearful that Fareeha would wake the two in the living room or rouse the third. Slight pink-brown hues colored Fareeha's face as her eyes sparkled. She was fighting a laugh.

It was infectious.

Angela felt a smile spread across her mouth. Fareeha put her at ease. Her presence felt like the warmth of a fire on a cold winter day. Fareeha's strong, metallic fingers wrapped around Angela's outstretched forearm, pulling her up and into an embrace. For a second, that close to Fareeha, Angela could forget the guilt that ripped at her heart and mind and kept her awake at night. Angela pulled up and kissed Fareeha gently.

So warm. So familiar.

Angela pulled away and marvelled at Fareeha's smiling face. She usually looked so serious that when she smiled, it was a gift. Without actively intending to do so, Angela reached up and cupped Fareeha's face. Her strong jaw rested in the cool palm of her hand for just a second before soft lips kissed that hand. They stood there just long enough, eyes locked on one another's, for Angela to wonder how she could be so lucky.

The storm clouds over her head had parted, even if for the moment. Fareeha was the aloe on burned skin. The water for the parched. The sun after a dark winter.

The first time they'd met, Angela hadn't thought much of Fareeha. Angela had been seventeen, riding the high of being personally chosen to apprentice with Overwatch's personal head doctor, and Fareeha had been twelve, nothing more than the adorably precocious daughter of Ana Amari. Angela had looked down at Fareeha as a child, in that way that all teenagers seemed to think the world of their own maturity. It wasn't often that they saw each other, but Fareeha had idolized her, following her around whenever Ana let her off the proverbial leash, asking question after question about what Angela was doing, how Overwatch functioned, personal details about the other agents (especially poor old Reinhardt Wilhelm). Angela had rolled her eyes and indulged the girl, but after a while she found herself developing a real fondness for her. She especially took interest in Fareeha when a young Jesse McCree started prowling around the halls. Angela knew he could be dangerous and didn't want Fareeha anywhere near him. He wasn't so bad, even then, but Angela knew there was something in there that was dark. If she could help it, she wouldn't let that darkness pass over Fareeha.

Time passed, and Fareeha grew apart from her mother, determined to find her own path, eventually joining the Egyptian army as soon as she was eligible. By the time Ana was killed - and rumor held that her her murderer had been none other than the Widowmaker herself - Angela had all but forgotten about Fareeha Amari. Overwatch hadn't lasted much longer.

A few years later, Angela had been making rounds in Cairo, doing pro bono charity work, when she noticed someone who looked too familiar. Fareeha. Something about her silent strength called to Angela, who couldn't help but notice the rusty, clumsy appendages that had replaced Fareeha's limbs. How could she let anyone, let alone the daughter of the woman to whom she owed so much, fight in such horrible conditions? She hadn't known how much she needed Fareeha at the time. She'd offered Fareeha experimental prosthetics for free in order to see how limb enhancement would work, given the proper circumstances. She could construct a person out of omnic equipment, sure, but could she craft something for someone who needed proportional replacements?

The answer was yes, but battle prosthetics and mundane prosthetics would have been way out of this woman's paygrade. Her jaw had clenched at the price tag, but she nodded. Angela liked that. She liked Commander Fareeha Amari. The girl who had followed her with eyes so bright so long ago had become a woman whose courage and determination were to be envied.

All the time with measurements, resizing, and testing out functionality brought Angela and Fareeha closer together once more. Angela learned Fareeha's fears - losing her team members, spiders, clowns, and taxes. Fareeha learned Angela's, which were too many to count. Angela learned that puppies made Fareeha happy just like snow. Her favorite color was now blue instead of pink. She hated sand, which made Angela laugh at the times they'd spent at beaches. They chipped away at each other's walls quickly. On the last test several months after meeting again, they'd done more than just test Fareeha's prosthetics for mundane functionality. That kind of "testing" happened more than a few times. Angela hesitated at first, pushing Fareeha away. She was too afraid that this relationship would turn out like her last serious one. After _him_. She'd slept around for stress relief between the relationships, but she missed intimate contact on a deeper level. She was just so… afraid.

Fareeha had taken all of that into consideration, knowing Angela's previous relationship. Knowing Angela's fears. In the meantime, Angela convinced Fareeha to join the Overwatch team. She felt slightly guilty about recruiting her girlfriend, but Fareeha understood. Part of her still saw the old Overwatch team as larger than life heroes, old fashioned Knights who fought for justice and good. In the end, it strengthened their relationship in a way that broke the remaining barriers between them. They'd taken it slow, almost painfully so, until Angela practically begged for more than the tenuous thing they had. Fareeha obliged without hesitation. Their paths were intimately connected from childhood and continued onward, despite a brief period of parting.

"Oh my god. Gross." Hana's voice jolted Angela from her reverie, and her face burned with embarrassment.

"Hana!" Angela hissed quietly, trying not to wake the ones in the living room.

"Can you guys at least shut the door?" Hana's smug smile said more than her actual words. Angela liked that about her.

The ease of being with close family clicked into place. Angela flashed a genuine smile that came easily to her lips. "If you _insist._ "

Fareeha pulled Angela in and shut the door behind them, making a point to grope Angela's ass before getting out of Hana's sight and kissing Angela again a little less gently than before.

"Angela," she breathed once the door clicked shut.

Angela felt her face catch fire, and she pulled away. "Not… Not now…"

Fareeha leaned back and nodded once, going back in for a slow, gentle kiss. Nothing heated sparked between them in that moment - just slow warming comfort. Angela pulled away first.

"I have a bad feeling," she sighed.

Fareeha tilted her head, metal beads clicking familiarly. "Do you want me to hold you?"

Angela nodded, and they crawled back in bed together. She rolled on her side to where Fareeha didn't have to wear her hearing aid in bed. The feedback made her miserable. Angela had once offered to set up her ear to function like a mechanized eardrum with all the fixings for the inner ear, but Fareeha refused. Explosive concussions could do nasty damage to omnic technology at close range. Angela, stubborn as ever, still searched for an alternative to make Fareeha's life easier.

Fareeha's soft breathing grew deeper with her arms around Angela's waist. Fareeha could pass out at a moment's notice. Must have been some kind of special operations training.

Angela squeezed Fareeha's hand in the dark. The conversation in the living room came flooding back to her. She needed to sleep. Somewhere, her mind crossed the two, and she fell into a fitful sleep plagued by dreams of Gabriel Reyes breaking into the safehouse to take back Widowmaker. Dreams of Lena clutching Angela's shirt, the light fading from her eyes. Dreams of Fareeha turning her back just like Reyes had done.

* * *

Angela woke the next morning covered in sweat again. She wasn't middle aged enough for night sweats. Fareeha lay sleeping, still curled protectively around Angela. The morning light streaming through the window highlighted her bronze skin and softened her definite, angular features. Angela liked watching her sleep. She always looked less worried when she was sleeping. Angela smiled and caressed her lover's cheek, feeling the gentle, lovely touch of her skin. Fareeha mumbled something in her native language and snuffled out something that half-sounded like a snore.

 _You don't deserve her,_ Angela thought, not for the first time, but for once, it was less a condemnation than it was a simple statement of awe. No one else had ever felt so… _right._

The sounds of faint knocking around made last night's situation crash back down around her, and she realized that Amélie was still there, Lena was far too close, and Hana was so trusting of them both. She sighed a little too heavily for just waking up, but the relief she'd felt looking at Fareeha vanished. It was quickly replaced by a fantastic weight that seemed to fall from the heavens, landing ungracefully and heavily onto Angela's shoulders. She groaned quietly, flopping back over onto her side.

She didn't want to think about this right now. Any of it. When Winston had initiated the recall, she'd resisted at first. She wasn't sure that coming back together was the right idea anymore. Between Reyes and Blackwatch and the fall of the organization, she'd become cynical. There was something Winston had said, though, that brought her back. A few simple words. _They need you._

And Angela had come back, but she'd made a promise to herself. She would do everything in her power to protect them. All of them. They'd needed a leader, but more than that, they'd all needed someone who _cared_ , who _understood._ Angela had resolved to be that person for them.

And, she thought, pressing a pillow onto her face, wonders never cease, she _had_ protected them. They _had_ needed her, and she'd been there for them. From little Hana to powerful Zarya, many of them considered her a kind of mother figure, and Angela was more than happy to play the part. She loved her surrogate family more than life itself.

And then Lena had been shot. Just in the leg, not enough to be lethal for most people, but just enough for everything to unravel. Every single action she'd taken, it felt like, pushed Lena and Hana further and further away from her. They'd trusted her, and what had she been? Cold. Distant. Secretive.

They probably hated her now. That hurt bad enough that her mouth went dry and she wanted a drink. _It's four o' clock somewhere._ Everything she'd done, every secret plan she'd made, all of it had done nothing but make things worse. Let alone how dangerous it was to have Widowmaker all but _loose_ in the safehouse. Coming back or not, the woman was still a threat to everything she'd built.

She'd tried to play the chessmaster, and she'd failed. When had she ever had any other choice, though?

She sighed. Ana… Ana would have known what to do. The older woman had always been a hardass, but she'd always seemed to have the answer to what troubled you. What would she have said to Angela now? _Get your sorry ass over there and talk to those girls,_ probably. _Make your amends before the bridges burn completely._

If only she thought she could do that.

Angela laid about for a few more minutes before she adeptly crept from her shared room with a slight headache. Caffeine deprivation, hopefully. She tried to avoid using too much caffeine and blowing out her adrenal glands, but she hadn't been sleeping much lately. She'd been self medicating too often. There was a wine shortage in the safe house. It was too early to be having alcohol at any rate… right?

God, but she wanted a drink.

Angela looked around the hall blearily. Hana's door was closed, after the night before. Angela's mind began calculating faster than stock market bigwigs, but was immediately put to rest when Hana came around the corner of the kitchen with two cups of motor oil colored coffee. She paused when she saw Angela and gave a small smile. The smile turned mischievous, her eyes narrowing and her grin spreading wider, and Angela instinctively tugged at her shirt and tried to fix her bedhead quickly.

It appeared that she was the only other one awake besides the three in the living room. Her heart skittered a few times before she swallowed. She was a world renowned surgeon and doctor who could manipulate genes easier than she could thread a needle. What _frightened_ her so much that it kept her from even leaving the hall?

Widowmaker. Easy. Going in and seeing the unnaturally blue flesh would put her stomach right off of eating. She'd seen _corpses_ that looked more alive than that… _reanimated flesh suit_ called the Widowmaker. Flickers of memory, as wispy as candle smoke, wafted through her mind as she remembered the night before. She was a dead friend walking, a zombified corpse with Amélie's discolored face who committed heinous atrocities. Talon had not completely taken Amélie, but exactly how much of her remained trapped in Widowmaker's control?

She wouldn't know unless she took the plunge.

So Angela walked down the hall, holding her head high. She didn't want to look at Lena, whose leg would probably never heal correctly. She didn't want to look at Widowmaker, whose face was that of her fallen friend's wife. She didn't want to look at Hana, who she had failed in so many ways - as a mother, as a friend, as an ally.

But she did. As she walked far enough down the hall to the open living room on her left, she smiled at everyone. It felt forced. "Good morning, all."

Widowmaker, who had looked warm and intrigued by Lena's expressive face, withdrew into her shell, glazing over into a cool, shrewd statue, coffee cup frozen in her stone-like hands. Lena, previously smiling, mimicked Widowmaker's mask, taking a sip of her coffee silently.

"Morning." Lena's voice felt like an icicle had been thrown directly into Angela's heart. It didn't suit Lena's warm disposition, yet there it was. Lena had never been outright hostile, but this was damn near close. Rather than letting it drive her away, Angela tried to put it into perspective. _Her best friend was beaten to a pulp because of an order you gave, and you've treated her with suspicion._

Ana's grizzled voice spoke up in Angela's head. _Tell the girl you're sorry for what you did. Should be the truth._

Angela followed up quickly, trying to keep her voice from cracking. "Last night went well?"

Lena rolled her eyes - a very Hana-like gesture. "Yeah, love. Went great." She took another noisy slurp off the top of her overfilled coffee cup. Her mug was not her usual. Instead, Widowmaker held Lena's bright blue mug that was dotted with cartoonish white clouds.

Angela felt her eyebrows knit together. Even after everything… This was too much. Lena was getting far too close to the enemy. She closed her eyes for a second and disguised her calming breath as a stretch. She finished and noted that Lena no longer looked back at her, but Widowmaker's eyes held fast. She did not blink.

She couldn't help but think that this isn't what she signed up for when she warily accepted the recall.

"Ah, Widowmaker. I suppose it is too long in my asking, but does your face hurt?" She cleared her throat, putting on her Doctor Voice. "Your swelling has gone down considerably, but that doesn't mean that your body isn't feeling after-effects. The damage to your tooth could not have been painless either."

Every sentient being understood pain - felt pain. If Widowmaker felt pain, she was at least a step above a tool. That meant that there was still hope for her, right?

No. Even Gabriel Reyes felt pain.

In fact… Angela knew that he felt nothing _but_ pain.

But then again. Gabriel Reyes was still human.

Widowmaker's hard, quiet voice broke Angela's train of thought. She often got too deep in her own thoughts to appropriately respond, especially as of late. "Yes."

The answer was simple but hit Angela in the stomach like an aluminum baseball bat. Angela had almost forgotten that Widowmaker was still a person somewhere in there before last night, and the answer she gave proved to Angela that she'd almost forgotten the oath she'd taken as a doctor.

She was there to help the injured. Treat the sick. Do no harm and minimize damage to nature, animals, and human beings. She'd not fully lived up to her oath as far as Widowmaker was concerned. Angela still wasn't sure how close Widowmaker actually was to _human_ , but if she could feel pain, then it was Angela's job to treat it.

What kind of doctor _was_ she?

Without another forced word, Angela went for some potent pain medication - well, the strongest she had access to here at _this_ safehouse. She laid out two white pills and a glass of water on the coffee table. "Take these. We'll see how you feel in about twenty minutes. Lena, keep watch until I get done with the shower." Angela paused a long second, a thought clicking in her head. There were no windows in the bathroom. Another amenity they'd denied their prisoner. A chance to make another small gesture. "Widowmaker, do you want a shower?"

Widowmaker's voice came out like a poison dart. "Do you plan to electrocute me while I'm under the water?"

Angela was almost as a loss for words. A voice whispered in the back of her mind that she deserved this. She'd gone so far from her true self - her caring self. Her true nature. She'd been too caught up in trying to lead, when she just wanted to keep everyone alive and well. She didn't want this responsibility. "My god, no. Of course not! I'm a doctor, dammit, not an executioner!" She looked to Lena who just shrugged with raised eyebrows and took another sip of coffee. Her face was easy to read. _Your fault, doc._

Angela supposed she deserved that, too, but it still hurt. She'd driven a huge wedge between them, but she wanted to mend the rift. There were still executive decisions that have to be made, though. She could do what she could, but the damage had been done. Probably would still be ongoing. She was still their leader.

Lena had said that she understood, though, right? No, time can change a response to a stimulus.

 _There's a time for leadership,_ said Ana's voice, _and a time for friendship. You need to learn the difference, kid._

"Take more of Lena's clothes," Angela sniffed indignantly, ignoring Lena and missing Hana's supportive presence. "I'll give you thirty minutes."

Widowmaker quirked an eyebrow, taking a sip of coffee. "Does that start now or once I get the water running?"

 _Fantastic_. Widowmaker was starting to have a sense of humor. Did tools have a sense of humor?

Angela felt ill.

* * *

The day passed uneventfully for Angela. Widowmaker stayed medicated and, for the most part, cool as ever. Only a few times did she get agitated - mostly when Lena had been gone an extended period of time. She trusted Lena, which, Angela supposed from a more sympathetic view, was understandable, seeing as how Lena had been the first to see a glimmer of humanity in Widowmaker.

Angela worked through most of the night without a hitch. As her first order of business, she'd made a way to stabilize Zenyatta once she'd gotten to work. Genji had stayed. They didn't talk to each other much, and Angela figured that was fair. She'd made him into a killing machine. She'd tortured his soul when his body was already mostly gone. And for what?

Her fingers fell into a mechanical pattern that allowed her mind to still and focus on the task at hand rather than address any of the loose ends knocking around in her skull.

"Can you pass the wrench?" She muttered, wiping stray, fallen hair away from her face in annoyance. That was the third time that particular strand had fallen out of her ponytail. An intense, passing urge to cut all her hair off came and went without much real consideration.

"What size?" Genji's voice had softened throughout the last few days, even taken on a kind tone. He'd talked with Zenyatta's consciousness when he was on break. Sometimes during his work.

"5/32," Angela replied simply.

Her hands worked and numbed her mind. They did not speak unless necessary and had worked together only once before on the same shift. This last shift had been terribly, terribly silent, with the exception of the squeaking gears and occasional huffs.

"You know, I remember Zenyatta joking about getting shot." Genji spoke quietly and tentatively.

"Doesn't seem like him." Angela's reply was short. She couldn't afford to jeopardize the delicate repairs.

"He made jokes when something frightened him."

Angela tilted her head in acknowledgement. "That makes sense. I think we all do that." She paused, sensing more tension rising on the air. "He jokes a lot, for a master of peace and tranquility."

Genji barked a harsh laugh. "I've heard the same thing from Lena. She takes after you in many ways, Dr. Ziegler."

Angela stopped her work, exasperated, and looked up at Genji through fallen hairs. "Genji, please. Stop calling me 'Dr. Ziegler.' I know we've had our… history, but I don't want us to have a doctor-patient relationship. You're part of the team as far as I'm concerned, and I just…" She trailed off, the sudden burst of conversational feelings dissipating. She felt… ashamed for her outburst though it did nothing up open up a daunting door of conversation.

Genji tilted his head and said nothing. With one, shining hand, he reached up and removed his face plate. Angela set down her wrench and tried not to look as upset as she felt. She looked into his startlingly clear eyes. She'd always been taking back by the lack of damage to his eyes, considering the trauma to his face.

"Angela…" he started, hesitation coursing through his voice. "I'm not angry with you anymore."

Angela blinked, outwardly hardly missing a beat. Inwardly, though, her heart thudded.

"Before you…. took me in, I was not a good person." His gaze was unflagging. "Oh, I was not a killer like my brother, but I had no ambition. I laughed and I played and I lounged, and never once did I spare a single thought for anyone other than myself. I was content to be nothing. I saw the evils of the Shimada clan, and rather than working to change the organization from within, or even simply removing myself from the situation, I merely took advantage of their ill-gotten gains to feed my own luxurious lifestyle."

Angela nodded slowly. She thought she could understand where Genji was coming from.

"And then when you saved me, I was filled with hate. For my brother, for what I had become… And yes, for you, Doctor." He said it so matter-of-factly. "I ran. I ran for a long time. And then… I found _him."_ He nodded toward Zenyatta's headless body. "He's taught me many things, Angela, but most importantly, he's taught me to be okay with myself as I am now." His free hand flexed slowly; Angela wasn't sure he knew he was doing it. "I do not mean to be arrogant, but I am a far better man as I am now than I was as flesh and blood. Zenyatta saved my life and helped me find purpose, but you were the one who gave me that chance."

Angela finally relinquished her steel grip on the tiny wrench and opened her arms to Genji. Mask still in hand, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and squeezed her gently.

A pleased, caring chuckle came from the attic's secondary television. "I am very glad to see my friends and family getting along so well."

Angela jumped, breaking the needed, if not awkward, embrace. "Zenyatta!"

Laughter came again from the speakers. "I heard that I was being discussed, and my curiosity was piqued."

"Sensei, no…" Genji rubbed at his still exposed face. "Please, sensei."

"No need to call me sensei, Genji. We _are_ lovers after all." Zenyatta, to Angela, sounded like he was having _way_ too much fun.

Angela took sides with Genji, unable to keep a small smile from turning her lips. "Zenyatta, can we have a little privacy?"

"My apologies, Angela. I am still unaccustomed to not hearing everything at once." A pause. "While I am here, Genji, I would like to tell you that I am incredibly proud of you for making this leap of faith."

"Sensei…" Genji's exasperation reached a high point, irritation and embarrassment coloring his voice in bright, vibrant hues. His exposed face flushed around the white scarring, making them stand out even more than usual.

Another lightly accented voice broke the communication between them and Zenyatta. "I have temporarily disabled all microphones and cameras into this area, for your sake."

Athena.

Angela laughed. Something felt like it had been lifted from her chest, her shoulders feeling a little less burdened. She laughed hard. She hadn't realized the tension between her and Genji had resulted in exponentially mounting stress, but there it was. Tears began rolling from her eyes, and Genji joined suit, his usual seriousness all but evaporating entirely.

The two hunkered over their friend's disabled body, laughing - so entirely out of place that it brought more bouts of laughter.

After several minutes of unintelligible gibbering through sob-laughs, they finally quieted, red faced and bleary eyed. Maybe the crying hadn't necessarily come entirely from laughing, but that was a good enough cover story for Angela.

* * *

Another two days passed with the painstakingly boring routine that had become Angela's life. Wake up in a panicked haze, drink coffee with Widowmaker glaring at her spine, try to talk to Lena (who'd now begun to talk back cheerfully), work on Zenyatta, find comfort in Fareeha's arms, sleep.

Dammit, she was in _Florence_. She should be out drinking fine Italian liquor with her girlfriend and soaking up sights. _Not_ putting back together good old Humpty Dumpty - but then again, that implied Zenyatta could not be fixed. Since he'd been stabilized, his body could take short bursts of movement, but that didn't open a ton of room to jostle him around. They'd still need another long night or two before that was an option.

Angela shook her head over the frying eggs, which were beginning to burn. She cringed and threw them on a plate, too raw in some places and overcooked in others. Food was starting to run low in the house again, _especially_ since they had picked up another mouth to feed, so she could _not_ afford to throw them out. She took a breath and scarfed down the food while it was still too hot, the acrid taste of burned cooking spray sticking to the back of her tongue. Angela idly considered how her strictly controlled diet was really taking a hit.

A coffee cup clacked against the laminate countertop. Widowmaker had taken to wandering here and there over the last day and a half… with supervision, of course. She stood, hair down, and watched Angela with a neutral expression. Irritation clawed at her insides, and she couldn't keep it from her face.

"Doctor," Widowmaker acknowledged blandly.

McCree watched her the previous night. Fareeha mostly watched during the day, but Lena argued in a supervised spot or two. _Can't keep her from who she wants_ , Angela chided herself, mimicking Ana's voice from long ago. She took a sip of lightly creamed coffee. "Talon has more than my title on file, I'm sure."

Widowmaker quirked her head and stared down at the remaining egg giblets. "I know who you are, but I do not know you. I do not know anyone here." She looked back into the living room, expression softening into a ghost of amusement. "I'm beginning to learn, though."

Angela sighed, pinching her nose to stifle a headache. They were getting more frequent. She trusted the Widowmaker as far as she could throw her. Lena's closeness called for considerable concern, but it _did_ keep her in one place to heal her damn leg.

"That's all well and good, but you haven't told us what you promised when we agreed to take you in."

Widowmaker's eyes narrowed, as cold and flat as damned gold and her amiability gone in an instant. "Are you calling me a liar, Angela Ziegler? As I recall, it was _your_ cur who stepped out of line. I fulfilled part of my bargain in keeping Tekhartha Zenyatta from being permanently disabled."

Repulsion made Angela flinch away. "No, I'm saying that I don't know why you're here if you won't tell us what you know."

A frosty smirk replaced any trace of warmth on Widowmaker's face. "It isn't time yet."

The bottom of Angela's stomach fell out. Waves of nausea pulled her in and filled her lungs with cloying fear and regret. _It's a trap_. She should have trusted her better judgement and killed Widowmaker herself. _No… Amélie._

That other voice whispered cold words in the back of her mind. _Amélie isn't there…_

Angela gritted her teeth and turned on her heel away from the sneering woman. Her coffee, now behind her, could not go to waste, of course, and sheepishly, Angela turned back to grab her mug.

Widowmaker tilted her head, expression warming more quickly than Angela anticipated. Widowmaker's mood swings snapped back and forth like a flag in the wind. You never knew which way she would swing. Angela mimicked Widowmaker's head tilt, feeling much like a mocking child.

"Doctor Ziegler," The tone set Angela's teeth on edge. Too familiar. Too close to home. "You seem to go through bouts of trust and distrust. May I ask why?"

Angela narrowed her eyes and straightened her shoulders indignantly. "Just because I'm letting you walk around this place and function without handcuffs does not mean that I will hesitate to kill you if you cross us."

Widowmaker inclined her head. For a brief moment, Angela thought she might be showing a respect for her resolve. The little voice inside her that drove her decisions told her to be careful and wary of Widowmaker. She was _still_ an enemy.

Angela began to turn again and stopped, not looking up this time. "And Widowmaker."

"Yes?" The Widowmaker's tone was cool and amused.

"If you hurt Lena again, I will not allow you to take another breath." Angela spared another glance and hoped she looked as absolute and damning as possible.

From Widowmaker's clenched jaw and uncertain eyes, Angela supposed she got her point across. Angela left the kitchen with a small smile of triumph. No one was going to hurt her family again. She didn't care whose feelings she had to hurt. She would _not_ lose anyone else.

* * *

"Eomma, we've got a problem."

Angela looked up from her novel without doing much else. She'd been skimming through a book without reading many of the words. She braced herself for bad news. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Widowmaker straighten in her corner and Lena turn to look at Hana. She internally grumbled some more about Lena and Widowmaker being too close.

"We've got company, it looks like."

That sent Angela flying off the couch toward Hana as if her wing harness was attached. "Who?"

"Well, we've got one at the front door, for sure, so you might want to deal with that one first." Hana's smile looked forced. Her voice sounded tinny. She was afraid.

Angela squared her shoulders and popped her blaster from her thigh holster. She wouldn't go to the door alone but... Who could have gotten through the defenses without setting them off?

Fareeha, who'd been sitting in the kitchen, was already at the front door, waiting for Angela with a revolver that looked too big for any human hand. McCree stood nearby, a few steps back, hand on his own monstrous revolver, ready to draw at a moment's notice. Fareeha's dark eyes pinged quickly from Angela back to the door, and once Angela drew close enough, she nodded, unlatching the door and pushing it open.

"Jesus fuck, how many of there are you?" The gruff, comforting voice of Jack Morrison reached Angela's ears.

The biggest smile she'd mustered in weeks broke out on her face. "Jack!"

Before she could actually stop herself, Angela brushed past Fareeha and threw her arms around his neck. That stupid blue and white jacket he loved so much crinkled pleasantly against her skin. He smelled like he always did - worn leather and day old whiskey. He, in his typical Jack fashion, groaned and huffed before wrapping his stout arms around Angela, giving her a tight squeeze before letting go. _Finally_ , Angela breathed a sigh of relief. _Someone else to help lead this band of misfits._

Her heart sank a little; realistically, Jack wouldn't show up for no reason, though. Most likely, he'd show up for one reason in particular. Her smile faded altogether, leaving her feeling more hollow than when Fareeha opened the door. If Jack was here…

"Alright, alright," he said, giving Angela's back a vaguely grumpy pat. "That's enough, Angela." He looked past her to Fareeha and nodded, a bit of light glinting off his shining metal visor. "Fareeha. Good to see you. Keeping Angela's bed warm for her?"

Angela coughed and pulled away, her face glowing. "Jack!"

Fareeha smiled faintly and saluted. "Yes, sir. Just the way you ordered."

"Hrm. Good," he grunted. He turned his gaze to Jesse, who came over and planted a great wet kiss on Jack's visor, just where his lips would have been. His head tilted, visible face parts of his face a little splotchy, and he raised a hand in greeting to Hana. "Squirt."

Hana continued to look dismayed, which was unusual. She _loved_ Jack. Her feeble smile came and went almost entirely unnoticed. Usually she'd have shot back with something clever about Jack being so old, but today… Something was really eating at her.

"Everything alright, kid?" Jack asked at the same time Angela stepped forward and said "What is it, child?"

Hana took a deep breath, as if she hadn't heard. "Second order of business," said Hana, her voice steady but nervous.

Everyone swiveled toward her.

"We should get everyone together. I've… got something to show you."

They headed back downstairs as a group. On the way, Angela gave Jack a short rundown of what had been happening recently - most importantly, why one of their greatest enemies was snuggled up in the living room with a mug of tea. When they arrived, Lena actually got up from where she sat with Widowmaker to limp across the room when she saw him, almost tackling the larger man in a great bear hug with a cry of "Cap'n Jack!" Widowmaker narrowed her eyes and huddled her blanket closer around her like a turtle retreating into its shell. Angela almost wanted to smile at that. She wanted Widowmaker to _know_ that she couldn't afford a misstep.

Genji simply nodded in greeting, as Zenyatta solemnly intoned "Hello, Mr. Morrison. It's a pleasure to see you again, though my eyes are not what they once were. I hope your training has been treating you well?"

Athena's voice followed a moment later. "Greetings, Soldier 76. Welcome to the Florence Safehouse."

After what felt like a few nauseatingly long minutes, everyone sat around the couch and on the floor, watching Hana as if she were a teacher showing a video on the living room's television. Hana seemed more tense than even in her most pressured situations. That made Angela worry even more.

"Well, kid," Jack started. Angela gave him a look, but Hana didn't address it. She was chewing on her lip too hard. "What is it?"

"This." She pointed to the screen, and Athena put up blurry surveillance video of a tall man, face covered, drifting through the corner of a screen. The video ended.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," muttered McCree. Jack shoved him.

Angela saw Widowmaker's eyes go wide with fear, and her face went paler than usual. Lena leaned in and out her hand on Widowmaker's in a comforting gesture. Her face was hard, mouth drawn in a tight line.

"That's not all. Hang on." Hana turned to the screen. "Bring up file 142175. Enhance the third quadrant five times, and run the video." She dragged a hand down her face, dark circles under her eyes more apparent this time.

The video flicked to a blurry, pixelated black and white security camera in what looked like a gas station, the kind that only recorded about a frame a second. All was quiet for a few moments; the man behind the counter lounged, bored, idly fiddling with one of the display cases. Then, between one frame and the next, the door was open, and a great, shapeless shadow took up nearly the entire corner of the frame.

As the video ran, Angela was the first to react, covering her mouth.

The man behind the counter leapt to his feet, reached for something underneath the displays... and the next frame, he suddenly flew backwards as if kicked by a giant, slamming into the great glass wall guarding the tobacco products. Black splatter stained the glass that hadn't fallen out from the impact. Before he could hit the ground, things all around the image tumbled off their shelves as what looked like a great, swirling wind kicked up, and as the video progressed, smoke dribbled out of the man's face. It drifted upward, seemingly untouched by the wind, and suddenly flew toward the shadow in the corner. Was that a masked face that it flowed into or merely a trick of the grainy video? The man bucked and writhed, and the stream of smoke thickened and grew until it obscured his entire body.

It lasted for nearly a minute. When the last dribbles puffed away, all that was left was a skeletal corpse, it's eyes and mouth gaping and black - the skin stretched tight over the skull. Hair thin, clothes hanging loose over barely covered bones. The shadow in the corner lingered for a few moments, and the video finally cut out into static.

"Jesus Christ," Jack whispered.

Genji hissed and swore in Japanese.

McCree simply went, "Oh…" as some kind of retraction of his previous statement.

Widowmaker pushed herself further away from the television.

"Run the news feed," Hana barked harshly. Angela had never heard Hana speak to Athena so roughly before. Hana pinched her nose, and Angela could have laughed at the gesture being so similar to her own if she hadn't seen someone just have their life's essence stolen from them.

"Now, for our developing international story. Several bodies have been found with no known cause of death in Florence, Italy. The corpses have been found all over the city, apparently _mummified_ , though early reports put the time of death for the corpses no earlier than this Saturday. Two of the bodies bore serious gunshot wounds, though the other three were apparently unharmed prior to their deaths. We go now to video, though the following footage is graphic and may be inappropriate for some viewers."

The screen cut to high resolution footage of several dessicated corpses. The setting: an old alleyway, hidden behind a dumpster. One appeared to be a man, lying on his back with his leg crushed, in a position that suggested that he had tried to crawl away from his assailant; the corpse next to him looked to be a woman, in a fine blue blouse, lying on her back. Her arms were frozen raised over her head, as if desperately trying to protect herself from something. The screen flicked to another image of the corpse from the gas station in Hana's first video. The body from the first video lay in several broken pieces of withered husk. It's chest was crushed into dust. None of the corpses shown had eyes, and all of them, no matter the position nor the state of decay, appeared to be screaming.

Angela felt herself whisper. "No…"

Jack sighed heavily. "I thought he might be around here, but I didn't know he would be so…" He shook his head. "So _fucking_ obvious. He thinks he doesn't even _need_ to hide anymore."

Hana have a terse nod. "I've been watching movement and the…" She swallowed visibly. "The bodies have been turning up for the last day. The first report was on a social media website, and I just went from there." She chewed in her thumbnail, arms crossed tight over her chest. "It's been… happening a lot in such a short period of time. Five bodies."

Widowmaker's tight, chilly voice broke the pregnant silence like a cry for help. "I suppose that I should begin telling you what I know."

Angela finally found herself able to speak, but instead of addressing Athena, the fear and rage took hold. She felt herself move before she was fully aware of her actions. The solid wooden coffee table went skidding across the carpet as if it were a smooth surface, tipping and crashing onto the floor. " _You_ …" She snarled and her jaw popped from being clenched too tight, her teeth grinding. Every fear she'd harbored during Widowmaker's stay came to the surface. Her maternal instincts had finally won out, and she would protect her family. " _You did this_. This was all your _plan_. You _lied to us_." More spittle than was necessary flew from her lips. Something in her mind whispered for her to stop while she was ahead. But she didn't. She _couldn't._ _Amélie. Ana. Reyes. All those people in Venice._ "You brought him here to _tear us all apart_. Biding your _time._ "

No one moved. No one breathed.

The fear in Widowmaker's eyes turned to cold hatred. Her words were quiet. "Do you call me a liar, Angela Ziegler?"

"What if I _am_?"

Everything happened too fast. Blurs of motion were really all Angela could remember. Widowmaker leapt from her tight crouch on the floor, going for Angela's throat like a cornered animal. Angela intercepted the pounce and the two rolled, knocking over a side table and shattering a glass lamp. Widowmaker shifted her weight onto her legs and grappled with Angela, who found herself entirely overpowered in close quarters combat. She clawed at the frigid hands around her throat. Widowmaker's eyes seethed hatred and fear.

In her animalistic attempts to claw away Widowmaker's hands from her neck, she distantly wondered if this would be how she died.

Maybe she deserved it.


	15. Everybody's Watching Me

A moment after Widowmaker lunged, the room exploded into action. Nearly everyone was on their feet in a heartbeat, weapons drawn. A half dozen voices cried out, and guns raised - though none would be willing to take the shot, not with Widowmaker and Angela tangled so closely the way they were. Hana had stumbled back against the wall, her eyes wide, while Jack sprang from the couch.

"Everyone stop!" Lena found herself standing without relying on her crutches. Her leg smarted in discomfort - nowhere near the pain level as a few days prior. She ignored it. Someone could cut off her leg, and it would be a minor inconvenience at this point. Her best friend, surfacing though still slumbering, was viciously, if not fearfully, reacting.

Killing Angela Ziegler.

Killing someone who might as well be her mother.

"Widowmaker…" Her voice felt sure and calm despite her own fears and growing panic. "You have to let her go." Lena saw McCree out of the corner of her eye. He'd drawn that damn Peacekeeper of his, and he was inching closer. "Put your gun down. You're scaring her."

McCree hesitated, but Lena didn't move her eyes from Widowmaker's face. Widowmaker's snarl faltered, her eyebrows knitting together, deepening the fear and uncertainty so plainly on her face.

"Put the gun down, boy," snapped Jack. He knew as well as anyone that this situation was already bad but could get much, much worse.

"Widowmaker, let her go." Lena almost cried out. She'd only gotten close enough to Widowmaker for her to trust a little more. Now, it was all broken. "You're killing her. You don't have a reason to kill her."

"She said she'd kill me if she thought I double-crossed her." Widowmaker's hands loosened but did not allow Angela to do more than gasp for pained breaths. Lena's shoulders came down a fraction of an inch, but the frozen ball of fear lodged in her stomach like a bullet.

"Amélie, please," Lena begged, her voice dropping to a broken whisper. She couldn't just have Angela throw away days of progress…

Widowmaker froze and threw herself back violently as if by a convulsion, shielding her face and trying to crawl away from Angela. Lena's heart shattered. Widowmaker's eyes darted around wildly, obviously fearful and desperate. She looked like a trapped, wounded, and confused animal.

Lena called again, placing herself between those standing and Widowmaker's cowering form. She turned her back to all of them, their guns drawn and not quite trained on Widowmaker. Jack abandoned his potential for an execution and went to Angela, ducking down and moving her gently. If Angela would have been in any condition to do so, she would have told him not to move her in case of a neck injury.

"Amélie…" Her voice felt strained like she'd been yelling. She felt helpless. If they wanted to kill Amélie, they would - no matter what she wanted. "Trust me, Amélie."

Lena reached a hand out much like she would to a frightened wild animal. Amélie, with a pained expression, lowered her head, still grimacing. Painfully slowly, Amélie's cold fingers outstretched and brushed Lena's. Lena's heart skittered and hiccuped. They grasped one another's hands and pulled each other up. Lena kept her back to her teammates until completely stable, only then turning and keeping her face as neutral as possible. "No one touches her."

"She just fucking tried to kill Angela," snapped McCree, clicking back the hammer to his revolver again. He didn't aim.

Lena felt a guttural snarl rip from her lips. "What happened to Zenyatta's training, Jesse? What happened to trying to understand the situation? What happened to ask first, shoot later? Are you still as much of an _animal_ as you used to be?" She felt her voice full of venom. "Are you still _Blackwatch_?"

Angela's choking gasps turned Lena's attention. She looked down at Angela analytically. Angela would be fine. Maybe she needed to know how it felt to be cornered by an enemy.

A soothing voice came from the television, starkly contrasting the small whimpers from the much taller Widowmaker hiding behind Lena and Angela, who was now looked over by both Jack and Genji. "While temporarily unable to breach into the audio stream, I know every word that I have heard from this room. Angela, you told Widowmaker that if she double crossed you in any way, you would kill her. A moment ago, you definitively called her a liar. Widowmaker was merely afraid for her life. All of you should keep in mind, she is still your enemy and your prisoner."

Angela, with great effort and thanks to her guardians, sat up, eyes bloodshot and bleary. Those tired, blue eyes drilled into the side of Lena's face. Lena could hear her wheeze with every breath. McCree's jaw tightened at Zenyatta's words, but he lowered the hammer on his revolver but didn't bother to put it back in its holster. Hana still stood against the wall, grimacing and making herself as small as possible.

"Sensei, she attacked Angela," chided Genji quietly, still firmly supporting Angela.

"Widowmaker is not unlike us all. Wouldn't we lash out if cornered by so many enemies? Not many of you have tried to comfort her nor reassure that you mean her no harm." Zenyatta paused but not long enough for anyone to interject. "I must remind you that, with Athena and myself present, we outnumber Widowmaker nine to one. Is that not cause enough for fear?"

Everyone fell silent for a moment with the exception of Widowmaker's low whimpers and Angela's ragged breathing. Lena couldn't spare the moment of weakness to check on Widowmaker. Not in front of McCree. Not in this moment. The quiet sounds she made caused Lena's chest to tighten like she was listening to a crying baby that couldn't be consoled. Part of her just wanted Widowmaker to stop, and another part of her wanted to fix whatever was upsetting her. If she turned her back to McCree, though, it would be like rolling over and admitting defeat.

Jesse's jaw clenched harder, and Lena wondered how his teeth didn't completely shatter. His hands flexed at his side, and his nostrils flared. But… slowly, so slowly, he holstered the Peacekeeper. Finally, his hand left the butt of his revolver. His eyes lowered. "I trust her as far as I can throw her."

Lena narrowed her eyes but quipped, "You didn't specify with which arm." Ah, yes. The smarmy facade she took up during battle had seeped too thoroughly into her standoff. A tumbleweed could have rolled by with such a tense situation, and it would not have been out of place. She half expected McCree to Deadeye her right then and there.

He gave a small, tight smile in response. "I'm not your enemy, Lena."

She reached back for Widowmaker's hand, larger than hers but feeling so small. Her fingers intertwined with Widowmaker's, making her alliance known. She was _not_ going to back down for anyone. Hard determination became the sediment on which she based her decisions. "She's not your enemy, here, Jesse."

Like a cold splash of water to the face, memory overcame Lena Oxton. Her break-in to the Overwatch aviation facility as little more than a kid. She'd been subject to a similar conversation with Jesse McCree before, except that she'd been on the side of it Widowmaker was now on. Jesse, while younger and less restrained under Blackwatch, was all too eager to "take care of" the intruder, but Angela calmed him, shielding Lena with her body. She remembered the gleam of his eyes when looking down the barrel, and she was convinced that her short life was already over.

" _We can't have someone just running around knowing what's in here, Ang."_

" _We can't_ _ **murder**_ _a child either, Jesse. She was curious, and if I remember correctly, you were much the same when you were her age." She turned to Lena, looking more like a real life angel than pictures in books or stained glass interpretations in cathedral windows. "Child, what is your name?"_

Lena bit her lip. She and McCree had reconciled, but now… Could they fix this? Could she fix the shattered relationship with Angela? Angela, of all people, told her to stand up for her beliefs.

She felt Widowmaker's fingers tighten their grip on her hand. Then, Widowmaker let go. "If- if you decide that my demise is necessary, leave her out of it. Consider her actions coercion by my hand." Widowmaker took a step to face them herself, tear streaked face still glistening in the light. Her eyes were red. Amélie LaCroix had surfaced again, but this time, everyone could see her. Another set of tears streaked silently down her high cheeks. "I… acted out of fear for my life, but I do not expect mercy as I am still your prisoner." She paused. Lena felt her stomach clench, and acid climbed her throat. She swallowed. "Talon would have dispatched me immediately for such insolence." She squared her shoulders. "Your quarrel is with me, Jesse McCree - not with Lena." Her teeth flashed in a very Widowmaker-esque way. "The only one allowed to take her life is _me_."

The blood froze in Lena's veins. Had she meant that?

Jesse McCree's nostrils flared again and his fingers twitched anxiously. Lena knew that any threat to any teammate would be enough for him to take a "justified" shot.

"Jesse, take a walk," Angela croaked. She rubbed at her throat and motioned for Jack to help her up. She pushed Genji away gently with a tense smile.

McCree growled, probably unintentionally, and stormed off out the back door.

Hana ran off to Angela's room; for the first time, Fareeha moved, crossing the room and blocking out the window with her enormous body. She looked out the window. Lena could tell that she was protecting them simply from her stance. Her feet were planted wide, arms crossed tightly over her chest. Her eyes tracked something outside the window, presumably Jesse.

Widowmaker's fingers brushed against Lena's in askance for reassurance. Lena made the effort to intentionally brush back without actually taking her hand, despite wanting to do so badly enough to want to scream. The contact between them had been so… new. So gentle. When Lena had first started talking to her, Widowmaker had cringed so horribly at first that Lena wondered what had happened for her to react that way. Widowmaker had said one word in response. _Reaper_. That had made Lena feel sick. She didn't ask questions about it, and Widowmaker hadn't been willing to talk.

Hana came back into the room with Angela's caduceus in hand. She fiddled with it and inspected it thoroughly before clicking off a few buttons and aiming at Angela. As a green-gold stream of light poured forth, Hana staggered backward a few steps.

"I didn't realize this thing kicks like a son of a bitch," Hana murmured. Her eyes locked with Lena's and then flicked down to where Lena's hand was. She grimaced but looked back at Angela, pushing the caduceus forward slightly. The stream was much less controlled than when Angela handled it.

Widowmaker blinked a few times, staring down at Angela. Lena could see why. It took a long time to get used to seeing your teammates' cuts and bruises vanish in seconds.

Angela's eyes cleared and the purpling bruises on her throat began fading. Her lips and cheeks, slightly discolored, came back into their rosy, youthful glow. Widowmaker covered her mouth in obvious horror and reeled back, putting Lena back between her and Angela. Lena could see why. With regeneration abilities like that, she had to think of Reaper. It probably brought back bad memories. Lena knew, now, that the memories, older and newer, hurt Widowmaker. They made her feel too much all at once for her to properly process.

After a few agonizingly long seconds, Angela took an easy deep breath and spoke softly, as if sparing her vocal cords from any additional damage. She still relied on Jack to hold her up. His eyebrows were too close together to suggest complete calm. Her tone, however, was nothing but business. "Widowmaker, you should tell us what you know."

Lena felt her leg start to increase in pain level again. The adrenaline from the tussle must have worn way off. She nearly collapsed, but Widowmaker caught her with strong arms. She lowered Lena gently to the floor, and Lena averted her eyes shamefully, face growing redder by the millisecond. She could smell the strawberry shampoo in Widowmaker's hair. The peppermint tea on her breath. Her skin might be cold, but the gentleness was warm enough to make up for it.

Lena made a quiet, ambiguous but grumpy sound. She didn't want to leave Amélie's side for one second. Things were too fragile for her not to have as many allies as possible at all times.

Angela spared a glance at Lena, fear most evident in her eyes. Something else there lingered. "We'll stay here, if you… want. Hana," She changed her tone but did not turn her face from Widowmaker's. "That's enough of the caduceus. I'll take care of the rest later." She prodded her throat a few times with her fingers and nodded as if satisfied. "Thank you, Hana," she added quickly.

Hana's smile was brighter than even Lena anticipated, but of course, Hana Song thrived on praise. She could act tough all day long, but the constant wearing down oftentimes got to her without her realizing. Hana rested the staff against the wall and padded carefully around the shattered lamp. Luckily, the lamp only shattered into three pieces, making avoiding cutting her feet open a little easier.

Jack sat onto the floor where he stood, unceremoniously. Angela sat on the couch behind him, hand on his shoulder as if staking her claim much like Lena, herself, had done to Widowmaker. "Let's get on with this. This is too fucking complicated, and I need a fucking beer."

Zenyatta, who shared a screen with Athena, chuckled. "I, too, could use a relaxing beverage from these goings on. It is a heavy subject and a painful process. Often, truth is painful and unpleasant."

Angela's mouth puckered like she'd just tasted something sour or bitter. She pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation, but Lena almost laughed at Zenyatta's subtle jab. A soft snort came from Fareeha, whose back was still turned on the room. After a few awkward moments, Genji silently sat at the opposite end of the couch. Hana nestled between Jack and Widowmaker. To Lena, the arrangement looked more like a carefully arranged chess board, black and white pieces skirting around and intermingling tenuously.

Widowmaker paused and looked around, sitting next to Lena, legs crossed. Her face seemed entirely too childlike and slightly confused. The amusement faded when she realized that Widowmaker was struggling to read social cues and body language. She wanted to fit in. Or at least look less threatening. Her knee rested against Lena's, and her fingers rested lightly on Lena's elbow. She was reassuring herself, but Lena was also comforted by the contact.

"I… want you to promise that you will not hurt me." Her fingers subconsciously squeezed a little harder on Lena's elbow.

Jack grunted. "I'll speak for everyone. As long as you mind your ass, we'll mind ours."

Angela sighed. "Can you tone down the swearing a little?"

"Fuck no."

Amélie's eyebrow quirked up, and a small smile ghosted her lips. "Anyway…" She took a breath and sounded less certain than she did in her segue. "I am valuable to you." She said it as matter of fact as possible.

Jack snorted, and Angela started to say something but ended up coughing instead. Jack rolled his head back onto her knee and looked up. "Save your breath, sweetheart. I'll take care of this. Your throat is still shot to shit, after all." He turned his attention back to Widowmaker. "What's that got to do with Reyes?"

The air felt sucked out of the room. Gabriel Reyes was their number one enemy. Their number one threat.

"I know Gabriel Reyes's plans for Talon." Widowmaker's eyes seemed as hard and cold as the first day Lena had seen her. The name sounded like it was going to burn her tongue from the way she said it. "He plans to breed enough _urchins_ so that he'll have enough to eventually take over Talon. His… ideals… are extremely appealing to the younger crowd - the newer crowd. Many of the preexisting Talon agents disagree with their… current practices."

"Kid, you better tread damn careful," Jack growled in warning. "This is dangerous material to know. How do you know it?"

Widowmaker hissed through her teeth and snarled. " _Gabriel Reyes_ often likes to have dramatic monologues while torturing me."

Angela choked on her own spit and asked in a strained, concerned voice, "They torture you at Talon?"

Widowmaker blinked several times, the anger in her voice replaced with confusion. "Yes?" The response made Lena's heart ache as badly as when Widowmaker had told her of what her routine tune-ups consisted. She spoke slowly to Angela like she was speaking to a small child, trying to lead them to their own conclusions. "How else am I do perform at my highest capabilities if I am hindered by unnecessary thoughts and feelings?" The room became quiet again, and Widowmaker resumed. "I am meant to be completely erased." She paused, a pained expression on her face. "My memories. My feelings. Everything is supposed to be erased. For some reason, that has stopped happening. They become… distant." She tilted her head as if she were searching for words. "They never fully leave now. The memories I make as… me."

Jack grunted and shook his head. "Give me a sec." He snapped the few clasps on his visor and pulled it away, revealing his face. Lena couldn't help but stare, even if just for a few seconds. He seemed so gnarled and grizzled when he had his visor on, but without it, he just looked like a kitten who'd gotten in a few street fights. A _lot_ of street fights. "Damn thing starts itching."

"Jack, do you want your glasses?" Angela was asking about a set of glasses she'd designed to help him see, much like the visor he wore. Without them, he was essentially blind, only able to differentiate between fuzzed patches of light and dark. The fight with Reyes that destroyed Overwatch Headquarters had done in his vision, but with Angela's assisting technology, he had most of his sight back. Jack had resisted implants to make the fix more permanent; Lena wasn't exactly sure _why._ In all honesty, he was probably just too stubborn.

"It'd be helpful eventually, but it isn't a big deal right now." A pause. "As long as I don't have to tussle with the Widowmaker." He turned his attention to her. "You won't give an old blind guy a fight, will you?"

Lena saw Widowmaker quirk her head and furrow her brow. "I will not give you a fight, Jack Morrison." It occurred to Lena that her knowledge of Overwatch agents only came from files. The knowledge that Jack was mostly blind was… well protected information… _Until now,_ she guessed.

He leaned back against the couch, and Angela ruffled his hair. They looked so comfortable together… Jack gestured vaguely. "Keep goin'." A pause. "Shit. I guess we need Jesse. This is kinda important. Fareeha can you motion him in? What's he even doing?"

"Angrily practicing combat rolls," The large woman said simply. "Oh, he must have heard me. That's the fifth bird he's shot me." She rapped quickly on the glass and raised her voice. "Cut it out, and come inside."

Lena snorted. "Don't tap on the glass, Fareeha. It disturbs the animals."

Fareeha shot her a rare smile, and Lena felt her stomach flip over. That was one damn beautiful woman.

McCree creaked open the door, grass clippings sticking to his shirt, smiling a shit-eating grin. He looked too much like a happy kid to be the man all too willing to gun down someone in their living room only ten minutes ago. For a second, Lena could almost forgive him, but then she shook her head. Even if the Overwatch family was small, there was no need to abandon her morals to salvage a relationship with someone so volatile and dangerous. Could they ever repair the rift between them? Lena didn't rightly know if she wanted to.

"Aw, shucks. I'm touched that y'all missed me so bad so soon." He dusted off his shoulders and winked at Hana, who looked away with red cheeks. Her cowboy fetish was… wild. Any semblance of annoyance or ill will had completely disappeared from Jesse's posture and face. He nestled down on the floor next to Jack and threw an arm around his shoulders. Lena started to raise an eyebrow.

Genji huffed rather loudly. "We are wasting time. If such an enemy is afoot, we must be prepared. This… buffoonery is spending our daylight."

Hana scoffed. "Are you eighty? Who the hell talks like that?"

Angela pinched the bridge of her nose. "Jack, you're a terrible influence on the children." She gestured toward Widowmaker. "If you don't mind, I think Genji has a point. We need to know what his plans are, specifically."

Widowmaker nodded, chewing on her bottom lip. Lena looked over to her along with everyone else. "You okay, love? You need a drink or something?"

Widowmaker shook her head and turned her hand palm up, looking down at it. Lena's ears joined her face as part of the tomato-red gang, and she put her hand on Widowmaker's. She was absolutely positive that everyone in the room would be appalled, but Widowmaker needed her - relied on her - to be strong and live up to her word. Lena promised that any time she needed reassurance among the Overwatch crew, she would be there to give it however Widowmaker needed. Right now, she was asking for physical reassurance, but as embarrassed as she was, she complied to Widowmaker's silent request eagerly.

Widowmaker's shoulders lowered, though Lena hadn't realized she was more tense than usual. She wouldn't look anyone in the eye as she spoke quietly and rolled her thumb over one of Lena's knuckles. "Gabriel Reyes intends to overthrow Talon with the help of his carefully selected curs. He takes time to hand-pick them from batches of new recruits and shapes them to his will. He's a very charismatic man." She took a slow shaky breath. "He… kills the ones that do not follow his word to the letter. They are seen as unfaithful and defective." She looked up, directly staring into Angela's eyes. "He hates you for what he's become, almost as much as he hates himself, and intends to kill you personally. He intends to kill you with his bare hands."

Angela did not move. She didn't even seem to breathe. Jack squeezed one of her calves a little clumsily in awkward reassurance.

"Reyes disagrees with the way Talon has been handling missions and social affairs. He believes that a strong support network of common people should be the basis for controlling the governments rather than vice versa, using the governments to control the people. He also feels that they have become… lax." She furrowed her brow. "I'm sure that's why I have been allowed to live this long. It is not out of the kindness of his heart." She paused, squeezing Lena's hand too hard to be comfortable. "He does not have one."

Jack growled. "He wasn't always that way."

Angela still did not speak, but a chill ran down Lena's spine as she realized how Angela must be feeling. She blamed herself for what Reyes turned into, and hearing Widowmaker tell her tale would only fuel the self-loathing that Lena knew she suffered. She was mad at Angela, sure, but she wasn't an asshole.

Widowmaker scoffed at Jack Morrison. "He is a foolish man who believes that he can topple an organization built on the fears and silent desires of old fashioned men and radical children, believing they can stop the world from turning. No, Gabriel Reyes is a fool. That is why he is dangerous." She furrowed her brow, and Lena was glad that Widowmaker relinquished some of her grip on her fingers. Her fingertips were beginning to turn blue, and her wrist was starting to tingle. The frosty words of Widowmaker made them all want to pull a blanket around themselves.

Hana cracked the ice. "What would Reaper in power mean, exactly?"

Jack groaned. "I can tell you from this standpoint. We'd all be fucked."

McCree nodded. "He's a man who uses power as his own lifeblood. If he gets power over Talon, he'll be more effective than any of the current leaders. He'll stop at nothing to complete his task or accomplish his goal." He inclined his head to Jack. "He can tell you. Reyes was a powerful man in Blackwatch, but there was a difference between me and him. I knew when to stop. He didn't. There were no boundaries for that man. If he found something to conquer, he was going to do it, no matter the cost."

Angela looked down. "He would stop at nothing to destroy as many as possible. It would be mass genocide."

Hana's voice heightened in rage. "As if Talon isn't killing thousands and thousands of people already?"

Angela's sad eyes held vast amounts of pity. "Child, Gabriel would make Talon's crimes against humanity look like an uncovered sneeze next to a bloodbath, and that's exactly what he intends to do."

Widowmaker responded after a moment of silence. "His first order of business is to kill you all, starting with Angela Ziegler." Her lips quirked in a sardonic way. "Maybe ending with Angela Ziegler."

The only noticeable sound in the room was the low, steady hum of Lena's chronal accelerator and strangely metered breaths when Widowmaker gasped suddenly, clutching her chest, and released Lena's hand entirely.

"Are you alright?" Angela, Lena, and Hana all asked at once.

Worry was too apparent in Lena's voice. The way Widowmaker's face contorted in pain said that she clearly was not fine, and yet Lena couldn't help but ask the question. Lena reached a hand out tentatively, the stressful knot in her stomach growing three times in size. Nausea hit her in lapping waves.

Widowmaker shoved Lena's hand away too forcefully, making Lena recoil too quickly, too readily, and too afraid that Widowmaker would snap. The pained expression remaining for a few more seconds and dissipated into mild discomfort. A sheen of sweat coated her too-blue skin, and Lena noticed a subtle flush on her neck and ears.

Her voice, when she finally spoke, was tight and fearful. "I do not wish to remain on this topic any longer." Lena felt the sure weight of Widowmaker's still rigid body lean against her; without making too big of a deal about it, she noticed that Widowmaker still clutched her chest - only a little less tightly.

Angela worried her lip before tapping Jack's shoulder - who scooted off to the side - and rising. "Widowmaker, I promise I will not harm you. I need to see if you are alright."

Widowmaker waved her free hand. "I am fine, Doctor Ziegler."

Jack grumbled. "Can someone tell me what just happened?" He waved a hand in front of his sightless eyes as if demonstrating his inability to see the scene.

Athena's lightly accented voice came to the rescue. "Without doing a thorough analysis and only reading temperatures and heart rates, I can only infer that Amélie Lacroix has suffered a mild panic attack."

Widowmaker snarled. "Do _not_ call me that _name_." Her knuckles popped along with the seams of her tanktop. Her flush grew on her chest, neck, and face as her knuckles grew white with strain from clutching her shirt.

Lena put up a hand to Angela in a gesture to ward her off. She only knew what she, herself, had learned from waking up at night, covered in sweat and crying. She only knew what she'd learned from endless days and nights broken by only the pangs of desperation and fear that grabbed her. She knew fear. She lived in fear. In a quiet voice, Lena reassured, "No one will call you that anymore, if you don't want them to."

Widowmaker gave a tight nod.

"It's alright. I know it… hurts, but it's alright."

Widowmaker's voice sounded strained, as if she were stuffing down tears. "Feeling hurts."

Lena laughed in a mix of bitterness and amusement - bemusement? "It does. You know what else hurts?"

Widowmaker didn't look up much but quirked up an eyebrow enough for Lena to take it as a response.

"Not having anyone to help you through it." Lena offered a hand to Widowmaker, who did little more than brush her fingertips across Lena's palm, but it was enough. "I'm here. I'm here for now. No one's going to hurt you while you're here." She looked up at McCree, dead in the eye. She wanted to look away from his unsettling gaze but held her ground. "Not if I can help it."

He just rolled his shoulder in a half hearted shrug.

Widowmaker nodded several times before relaxing. A low grumble caught Lena off guard. Widowmaker's stomach was growling. She laughed and cringed when she saw Widowmaker's hand fly back to her chest at the sudden loud noise.

Angela smiled, a cautious thing. "Let's get you set. Can't have a starving informant."


	16. Smile Like You Mean It

_This chapter is short, but the next one is ten thousand words._

 _Heheheheheh._

* * *

AngelaZiegler watched as Lena and Hana threw together a smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich on toast. The fear in her chest was growing like an alien plant, feasting on her every passing, fearful thought. There were a lot of those. She'd gotten Jack his glasses, and he stumbled around for a while before growing accustomed to the way they worked again. To Angela, it seemed like he didn't wear anything but his visor very often. His seeing capabilities weren't as good with his glasses as with his visor.

She motioned for Fareeha to follow into their room, only vaguely concerned about leaving Widowmaker without a responsible party. Jack counted for something, at least. Fareeha nodded and followed silently, acutely aware of Angela's tension.

As soon as Fareeha closed the door behind her, Angela could not stop the sob so long caught in her throat from escaping. Widowmaker had just confirmed her greatest fears.

Fareeha's loving arms wrapped around her, quiet words spoken.

"He's coming for me," Angela wept softly. She could almost feel the way he would want to do it. He'd wrap his hands around her throat. When Widowmaker had attacked the way she had, Angela had envisioned it coming from someone else - not her. Those few precious seconds of reaction time that she needed were lost in the shock and fear. _Thank God for Lena…_

Fareeha stroked Angela's hair before pulling her hair down from its typical ponytail. Angela felt Fareeha's warm lips on her forehead a long moment before she pulled back and cupped Angela's face in her hands. "He's going to have to go through me first."

More pained tears fell from Angela's eyes. Fareeha's eyes widened, and apologies spilled forth. "That's what I'm afraid of, Fareeha. He can _have_ me if he'd leave the rest of you alone."

Fareeha shook her head vehemently. "No, Angela. You are valuable."

"That's why he _wants_ me." Her voice sounded desperate to even her own ears.

Fareeha's chuckle sent daggers into Angela's heart. Disappointment. "Angela, he wants you because he cannot have you."

"I did this."

The words finally came out. The words that tormented her waking moments and her sleep. The words that colored her fears and her nightmares. The words that she thought when she saw Widowmaker. The words she thought when she saw, heard, or thought about Reyes.

Fareeha's verbal comfort ran out after a simple, "No."

Her physical comfort was all she could provide after that point, but Fareeha was deeply concerned about Angela's wellbeing. When she got this upset, Angela took comfort in feeling close to others. It was part of the reason she'd slept around so much before she'd found Fareeha. Even so, Fareeha pushed to keep things as PG-13 as possible, despite Angela's pushes. Angela didn't understand right off the bat, but soon realized that Fareeha could see her emotional instability. After another hour of intermittent sobbing and cuddling comfort, Angela pulled herself together enough for a shower and some food. Time was meaningless to Angela, anymore. She slept when tired. She worked when needed. She ate when hungry. Fareeha offered to go, too, for company's sake, but didn't push when Angela wanted a private moment.

Angela emerged from the too hot shower feeling less like she was covered in emotional muck. She entered into the house proper, noting that the living room was empty. A moment of enraged panic struck her before subsiding at seeing Lena hobbling from the kitchen, relying again on crutches. She probably didn't need them at this point, but Angela wanted her to take care of her leg as much as possible.

"Hey, Ang." Lena's voice was quiet but genuine. "How you hanging in there, love?"

Angela averted her eyes. "Did you hear?"

Lena shrugged. "Nah, but I could tell you were upset. It ain't an easy thing." Angela was touched by Lena's kindness. Angela hadn't necessarily been the most understanding of Lena, as of late, but Lena's kindness, whether she intended to show it or not, broke through and graced Angela. Lena's willingness to understand baffled her.

There was hostility, still, sure, but Angela could see that they were both looking to mend a break.

"I'm... " Angela almost lied. "I could really use some coffee. Is a pot brewed?"

Lena smiled, standing on her own a little more without the use of her crutches. "Always. Plus, your mates are _dying_ to catch up in the kitchen." She looked around the living room. "Widowmaker is staying with me in my room tonight, if that's okay. She's…" Her smile turned into an immediate frown, sadness weighing down the corners of her mouth. "I think she's afraid that she's being watched."

Angela inclined her head. "I don't think she's going to run, but…" A small voice inside her told her to say horrible things and act on her fears, but she shoved it down. "Just be careful, Lena. She has to go back unless she decides to stay." Angela paused only for a moment. "Which she's welcome to do."

She wanted to believe that Amélie was still salvageable in there somewhere. She couldn't offer respite from the law, but she could offer a place, if Widowmaker wouldn't attack them without reason. So far, Widowmaker had had perfect reason to attack the only times she had, if what Zenyatta said was true.

Lena tilted her head, tips of her ears turning red just a few seconds before the flush crept across the bridge of her nose. "You really don't mind?" She sounded like a small child asking for a sleepover - but much more sad.

Angela shrugged. "We never know what the next day may bring. Time is valuable. Enjoy her company, child. You know she must go tomorrow."

Lena swallowed hard. Her voice cracked. "Yeah…"

Distantly, Angela realized that Lena hadn't smelled the least bit like smoke since Widowmaker had been around, despite all the tragedy that had followed them like a shadow. Angela thought she could at least catch a whiff, under the circumstances, but no. Not even the slightest hint.

"Go enjoy her, Lena. Just be careful." Angela felt a pull for Lena - a sadness she couldn't place. Amélie had been her best friend, who she just happened to fall in love with. She knew the feeling of losing a loved one to Talon all too well. Then again, he'd willingly gone to Talon. He'd willingly helped Talon make Widowmaker into who she was before the explosion at Overwatch Headquarters.

Lena nodded. "Take care of yourself tonight, Ang. Take it easy." She winked. "Give Fareeha a smooch for me."

Angela watched her walk into her room with less difficulty than even she anticipated. She mused over her last comment for a few seconds. She wasn't blind. She could see Lena trying not to ogle at Fareeha, and it made her smile. Lena never meant anything by it, and she tried very hard not to stare. Fareeha was indeed beautiful.

Angela made her way to the kitchen after that.

"Angela, my dear, have a seat. I'll get your coffee." Jesse stood from the kitchen table and offered his seat.

Angela nodded graciously. "Thank you, Jesse. I'll have it with cream, if we have any left."

Jesse grimaced. "No, we don't."

Fareeha grunted and scrounged up some non-dairy coffee creamer. Angela preferred it much less to cream, but it would do in the pinch they were in. She poured a heaping stream into the cup Jesse provided. "Thanks, Jess."

Jack fiddled with his glasses some, and Angela could see the rings running in circles, trying to assist his eyes' photoreceptors. He couldn't see color with just the glasses, but his visor connected to a node on the back of his head, which Angela had installed, that communicated directly to his brain. Angela could fix his eyes completely, but for some reason, he kept refusing.

She took a big gulp of blessed caffeine and looked over her friends. Jesse wrapped an arm around Jack's waist and rested his head on Jack's shoulder. Jack didn't complain or shove him off.

Angela just connected two dots she hadn't seen before this moment. The sloppy wet kiss at the door when Jack arrived and the two of them being so physically close hadn't clicked. "Woah, when did this happen?"

Jesse laughed and so did Fareeha. "Angela, did you really not see it?"

"Um, no, dear. No I did not." She didn't rightly know what to say.

Jesse rolled his eyes. "Poor Hana can't either."

Jack snorted. "She's got a thing for cowboys."

"So do you."

Jack tilted his head, bonking Jesse's lightly. "Yeah, you could say that."

Fareeha downed her last bit of coffee. "Give her some credit. She's been deep in her work lately. She hasn't had time to notice. "

"I guess," said McCree. "We've been keeping it on the down low. Don't rightly need more drama to stir up."

Angela felt her hand go to her nose, pinching the bridge. "Yes, but _when_?"

Jesse gave a thoughtful hum. "It's been only a few months."

"How?" Her vocabulary had been quite, quite reduced by the revelation.

Jack responded this time. "I was having a lot of trouble, Ang. You know that." And Angela did. He had become completely obsessed with the idea of catching Reaper. Everything about his life boiled down to finding Reaper. He'd go long periods of time without sleep or food. "I went to Zenyatta, and I found this shithead there with his shit eating grin. I remembered his spark. I liked it."

"We got absolutely smacked out our asses one night and hooked up."

Angela barked a laugh. "Yeah, that tends to happen with Jack."

Fareeha raised an eyebrow. "I sense a story here."

Jack groaned and rubbed his eyes under his glasses. "It was once. Don't make it weird."

"Wooaaahh, there. You haven't told me about this." Jesse put a hand to his chest in faux horror. "I am _shocked_. I've told you about all _my_ lovers."

"Short list," Jack grumbled.

Angela swallowed her coffee and laughed, almost blowing some out of her nose. She coughed a little. "We were both very drunk. It seemed like a great idea at the time. It wasn't exactly a big deal."

"It was _weird_ , and the conversation ends _here_ ," Jack reiterated with a growl.

"I forgot about it in all honesty, Fareeha. It was a while ago." Angela couldn't help an embarrassed smile.

"Don't worry, Jack. I'm sure she hasn't talked about it because you were such a mind blowing lover." Fareeha smiled smugly over the edge of her refilled mug.

Jesse snorted. "I'm sure that wasn't all that got blown."

"Mien gott..."

"Jesus fucking Christ, Jess."

"Hey, not everyone gets to make love to their childhood hero," Fareeha murmured.

Angela pointed an accusatory finger. "I've still got Reinhardt on speed dial, darling. I'm not afraid to use it."

Fareeha narrowed her eyes and lowered her mug from her blushing face. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Angela rolled her eyes playfully. "I have Reinhardt looking down at me from her vintage poster every time we make love back at home base."

Jack choked on his coffee, and Jesse patted him on the back, laughing. Angela and Fareeha ended up laughing too.

Laughing felt good.

Silence fell among them. The elephant in the room became too visible to ignore.

Angela broke the ice. "We have to get her back to Talon. She can't stay here any longer. Not with Reaper in the area. Besides, he already knows we're in Florence - we can blindfold her, and she won't give our specific location away. She was unconscious when we brought her here, remember. And as long as we're not torturing her-" she shot a glance at Jesse- "there's not much more we can get out of her anyway."

Jesse grimaced. "We can't keep her, sure. But back to Talon? You've gotta be shitting me. She's not some grunt that we can let run home to mommy. She's one of their best assassins. We let her go, how many people die?" His metal fingers clicked on the table. "You know where I stand. I say we put a bullet in her and be done."

"We are _not_ murderers, and you will _remember_ that we are _not_ Blackwatch, Jesse McCree." Angela's voice was heated. Maybe before seeing her interactions with Lena that she would have been as on board with that plan as Jesse, but now... "We don't have another choice. There's no one we can turn her in to. No government has files on her but us. We're disgraced and under suspicion. What cause would anyone have to believe us about her?"

"It's only _practical,"_ Jesse shot back. "You hate violence, doc, and I get that. I really do. But you take this pacifism shit _way too damn serious."_

Fareeha reached out and touched each of their shoulders before they could come to blows. "Sometimes, I have found, there is no good option." Her eyes were far away. "There is no right thing. Only the less wrong thing. And you are missing one critical detail, Mr. McCree." She turned her head, nodding toward the bedroom. "Lena believes in her. I think that should count for something."

"Lena is compromised," Jesse said. "She's... in love with that _thing_. Of course she trusts her."

Angela gritted her teeth. This was it. This was what it all hinged on, wasn't it? Lena's faith versus everyone else's. A decision was being made now; all the senior members present were here.

What did Angela believe?

Her throat still throbbed slightly. That should count for something.

She loved Lena like a daughter, and she'd done a poor job of showing it. That should count for something too.

Lena _did_ believe in Widowmaker. In Amélie. Zenyatta was right. That _should_ count for something.

"What do you think, Jack?" She needed time to think. Delay.

Jack shrugged. "I haven't been involved in the situation. Lena's a good kid, and smarter than I think we give her credit for, but that Widowmaker is a dangerous bitch."

They were silent for a moment.

The speakers crackled to life. "If I may," said Zenyatta, "I _have_ observed differences in the Widowmaker's behavior in the time since she has arrived. She is more emotional. She shows signs of empathy. I believe she cares for Lena. Genuinely."

Fareeha looked down at her hand, flexing her metallic fingers. "Zenyatta is correct. I've seen it too. There is one possibility we haven't considered."

Jesse snorted. "Yeah, and what's that?"

"That if we allow Widowmaker to return, it is possible that she will see the error of her ways. If she is truly beginning to feel, how could she be exposed to the horrors that Talon perpetrates without feeling _something?"_

"Letting her turn herself might be more effective than anything we could do…" Angela murmured quietly.

"That seems like a long shot," Jack said, rubbing his chin. "But I trust Lena. She's closest to the situation. Fuck it. I say let the Widowmaker go."

"You've gotta be kiddin' me," Jesse scoffed. "We're really doing this?"

Angela almost wanted to cry again with relief. No, she didn't want to let Widowmaker go. But neither would she be able to forgive herself if they simply killed her in cold blood, helpless.

Her conscience was already so heavy.

She made her choice then and there that she would rather have to look at her friend's murderer every day for the rest of her life than know she murdered a potential ally with her blessing.

Angela nodded. "We have to let her go."

"We already know how Lena and Hana will vote. It is decided, then," Fareeha said. "It is dangerous, but it is our best option."

Jack nodded. "She's a valuable asset to us now. Giving her back is gonna break the poor kid's heart."

Lena.

McCree grunted. "I don't know what her problem with me is."

Jack shoved him away. "You acted like a giant asshole, from what I hear. Not for the first time either. You nearly murdered her best friend. Beat the shit out of her right in front of the poor girl. Gérard deserves more than the way you're treating Amélie."

"Gérard is dead, Jack." McCree's voice was flat. The Blackwatch in his voice was all too apparent. "Amélie is dead, too."

Jack shook his head. "I remember her. The way that poor girl talked… When she put herself between us and Lena, she was there."

McCree dragged a hand down his face. "You weren't wearing your visor. How do you know?"

Jack shrugged. "I'm blind, not deaf."

Everyone nodded.

Jesse grunted in acknowledgment.

"Angela," Jack turned his attention to Angela and went back to snuggling up beside Jesse. "Gabriel is going to show if we release Widowmaker. We can't guarantee her safety either."

Angela cringed. "I… know… We're going to have to supervise her without being seen."

Jack gave an ambivalent nod. "If you want to play it that way…"

The stress was starting to get to her again. Fareeha seemed to notice and rattled an aspirin bottle around, shaking out two pills and taking them to Angela. Angela chewed them up and washed down the powder with coffee.

"I don't want to give her back at all. I don't want Lena to hurt. I don't want to keep her here. I don't want to look at her." Angela shrugged. "I just want to…"

"You want to do the right thing, kid. That's not a bad thing." Jack took Jesse's hat and put it on his own head. Jesse looked less than pleased.

"I also don't want to see Gabriel." Saying the name caused her physical pain.

McCree's eyebrows wrinkled. "I'm not too clear on this stuff. Fill me in."

Fareeha sat next to Angela and offered a hand. Angela intertwined their fingers and relished the cool comfort of Fareeha's prosthetic.

Jack grunted. "Want me to fill him in?"

Angela shook her head. "Gabriel and I were… intimately involved, Jesse."

His eyebrows shot up. "Woah, you mean…?"

Angela nodded curtly, the pain seeping into her heart and soul, memories resurfacing and drowning her in what she'd been trying to avoid. "Yeah… We were very serious." She avoided what she meant. _I loved him_. "You remember how he was at first, Jesse. He was a good man. He was one of the heroes. After the Crisis ended… He started… changing."

Jesse grunted. "Hard to remember that man in light of what he's become."

Jack nodded. "I remember you came in more than a few times looking… rough."

Angela nodded again. "He started talking about the corruption in Overwatch. He started talking about… He started making all of us look like enemies. We started as just casual, no strings attached stress relief."

"Sex, you mean," chimed in Jesse.

Fareeha gave him a steely glare, and Angela could have kissed her right then in thanks. "He started taking it out on me."

Jesse clenched his teeth. "Did he hit you, Angela?"

She didn't move. She didn't speak. She thought back to Widowmaker talking about Gabriel watching her sleep. She shivered. "He made me… believe him, which is more terrifying."

Jesse hissed through his teeth.

"We were together for so long that I started listening to him. I started believing him. I wanted to believe the best in him. And I mean… I was still just a kid compared to him, really. Thought so much of him, I was so… _subsumed_ by him that when he would go on these… _tirades_ about man and omnic, about purity…. I wanted to listen. When he talked about you, Jack…" She turned to Jack. "He wanted you to understand. After everything that happened between you, he still considered you his friend - maybe more. Until the fight. He wanted you to believe in him. So badly. But he was so angry… I'm… still ashamed of everything I thought then. I'm ashamed of how much power he had over me.

"After you and he…" She cleared her throat. "After Headquarters, I didn't know what had happened. All I knew was that he was dying, fast. After the explosion, there was so little _left_ of him… I just wanted to fix things. Conventional treatments wouldn't have helped. Not then. I didn't mean for the cellular regeneration to… go so _wrong_."

Jack's voice was unusually soft. "Angela, you can't blame yourself for that."

The pain tore at her heart. Every word felt like poison stinging her tongue and eating at her stomach. "I was too close. I was too close, and I let it get out of control. Talon got my information and used my information to turn him into _that_. My alterations were stable, but Talon thought they could enhance him even more. With the regeneration that I managed on top of his _stupid_ supersoldier enhancements, and Talon just put _more_ on him... The side effects just started… developing." Tears started surfacing. "I made him into what he is." Fareeha's fingers tightened around Angela's own in reassurance. "I broke it off with him after he started… spiraling even harder. After he raised his hand against me, I told him to leave."

"I'm going to kill him," hissed Jesse McCree. His eyes had that strange glint to them. He meant it.

"No, even if you wanted to, you can't. Nothing can kill him. Ask Winston. He incinerated Gabriel, and a few days later he was back on the map. As though nothing had happened."

Jack Morrison took a breath. "That's where you're wrong, which is one reason I'm here. You're the only one I know who can kill him."

Angela looked disbelievingly from Fareeha, solid and comforting, to McCree, back to hiding his anger beneath that cool facade, to Jack, who merely looked deadly serious.

Oh, she'd _dreamed_ of the day she could put her ghost to rest.

Angela Ziegler's bitter laughter filled the room.


	17. End of The Line

Lena glanced at Angela's back as she went into her room. Angela looked… defeated. More defeated than Lena could ever remember. She looked tired. Lena shook her head and walked on into her room.

Widowmaker sat with her back against the wall, gazing out the window at the darkening sky. Lena stood in the doorway for a long minute, watching her watch the birds going to roost. Widowmaker's eyes were soft and gentle, naive in a way. Lena felt a warmth soaking into her bones. The weight on her chest felt a little lighter upon seeing her, but the realization that her time was so short colored the beauty with tints of sadness and fear. Time felt so short. She wanted to make the best of their time together, but another part of her felt weighed down with immeasurable sadness.

They still had time.

But the weight on her chest was back, being reminded of the burden she carried.

Time.

The weight felt like her chronal harness, tethered to her body for the remainder of her life.

Did she even age the way normal people did?

She looked on Widowmaker's face. She probably didn't age at the same rate as other people, either. Body modifications.

Lena pushed the thought from her mind. The clock was ticking. Tomorrow. Tomorrow they'd take Widowmaker away.

Better make the best of it, right?

Widowmaker turned her head toward Lena, and ambivalent look on her face. "Lena…" Her voice was soft. She tossed something toward Lena, who dropped her crutches and caught the small rectangle only by using her blinking capability. Her pack of L&B cigarettes, still wrapped in cellophane. "What are those?"

Lena blushed and threw them in the garbage can beside the door. "Been going through my things, love?"

Widowmaker frowned. "I thought it best to improve my chances if you tried to kill me. Knowing where you keep weapons is useful in improving my survival."

Lena smiled, leaning over, picking up her crutches, and resting them against the wall. "Did you find them?"

"You keep a pistol in your nightstand and your unused blaster in your sock drawer, next to…" She wrinkled her nose. " _Those_."

Lena ran her left hand over her dresser and put her right to her chest in feigned awe. "You know all my secrets now. Mind if I sit?"

Widowmaker scooted over on the bed a little, still keeping her legs under the comforter. "Please, chérie."

Lena crawled up on the bed and hunkered down under the covers with Widowmaker. Lena brushed her naked knee with her own. Her skin felt warmer than it had a few days ago. Her heart thudded irregularly for a few beats before she offered her hand.

She wanted to feel Amélie's skin against her own. She ached for closeness. She ached for contact. The butterflies in her stomach tried to escape, and her skin tingled with excitement. Amélie took Lena's hand in both of her own, inspecting her knuckles. Embarrassment gripped Lena's stomach for a few moments, and before she could tell what Widowmaker was doing, Lena felt cool, refreshing lips on her knuckles.

A quiet whine mixed with a gasp escaped Lena's lips, and her face turned even redder.

"You're warm." Widowmaker said simply and intertwined her fingers with Lena's. "You have freckles everywhere."

Lena blushed. "How would you know they're _everywhere_?" Her tone came out a lot more suggestive than she intended.

Widowmaker smiled and did not look up at Lena, just down at where she had wrapped her fingers around Lena's. "It is simple extrapolation of data."

Lena couldn't help the massive grin on her face. In just a few days, Widowmaker and Lena had grown close. Lena could almost compare it to the way things were before… Lena's smile faltered as she remembered how utterly desperate Widowmaker was for company - for trust. She _wanted_ to trust in someone. She wanted to share.

But.

She didn't.

Widowmaker felt like it was her sworn duty to suffer in silence.

Lena had tried to change that as much as possible in the short time they were together. Widowmaker's shell had been a tough nut to crack, but Lena felt like she had private access to the only crack in her facade. She plunged into every part of Widowmaker that she would allow. Lena tried to be the safe comfort that Widowmaker needed in order to be alright. Her feelings overwhelmed her. They hurt her. Memories, from what Lena saw, hurt her even more. Sometimes, she needed time away from Lena because she said looking at her had started to hurt. That made Lena feel like she'd been plunged into icy water, but she respected Widowmaker's needs.

Hana had been supportive, too, but she'd also been very busy keeping as many tabs as possible on the news and social media. She was being more withdrawn than usual. Lena thought she knew why. The stream in Drachten had told the world of Hana's followers that they were moving to Italy and that they wouldn't be too far from the tragedy site. If Talon had been following on Hana's streams, which they probably had since she was now affiliated with Overwatch, they would have known just the places to look and significantly narrowed down their places to search.

Hana had also been having relationship problems.

"What are you thinking about, Lena Oxton?" Widowmaker's voice sounded shrewd.

"Oh, you know, love. Just things." Lena didn't rightly want to tell Widowmaker that she was afraid of tomorrow.

"I know that they must return me to Talon in order to prevent Reaper from tearing all of Italy apart." She looked down at their hands and back up at Lena. "You've been… my best friend… My first friend."

Lena smiled, probably a little bitterly. The chill in her chest came back. Memories didn't hurt just Widowmaker. "I've always been your friend."

Widowmaker looked away and started to withdraw her hand.

"No, Am- Widowmaker, please. I didn't mean to…" Panicked desperation colored Lena's voice, the lump in her throat grew large enough to choke on.

Widowmaker paused a long moment. Sudden claustrophobia smacked Lena in the chest like a sack of hammers. Widowmaker finally spoke, quietly, and slipped her fingers back around Lena's. "Can you tell me about Gérard Lacroix?"

The claustrophobia left, replaced by something much, much worse. Guilt. "He was a good man."

Widowmaker looked into Lena's eyes, but Lena could only see Amélie there. Amélie was reaching out again. Hope twinkled to life in Lena once more, displacing her fears about the next day, even if just temporarily. "I cared about Gérard," Lena amended before continuing. "Gérard and I weren't exactly close as…" She didn't want to say _you and I_ and trailed off "but he watched after me a lot. To him, I was just a scrappy kid with a bloody god complex. I believed I could do anything once I got into Overwatch." She thunked a fist on her chronal harness. "Right lot of good that did me. Anyway, he saw how willing I was and how much I wanted to believe in the right thing." Lena waved a hand. "He and Angela were closer, being on more missions together and whatnot."

Amélie's eyes narrowed. "How close were they?"

Lena put up a placating hand. "Nothing like that, love. Angela was involved with Gabriel at the time."

Wide amber eyes stared back at Lena in shock. "Involved? You don't mean…"

Lena shrugged uncomfortably. She'd probably said too much about Angela's personal affairs. Talking to Widowmaker was just too easy, and things slipped out. "Yeah, but it's not really my business to tell."

Widowmaker slid back into place over Amélie. At first, Lena found it jarring, but now, it was just the changing winds. Couldn't predict it. Shouldn't try to. "That explains things about him."

Lena quirked a brow but did not push. Above all else, she wanted Widowmaker to talk to her willingly rather than extract information. She shoved down any feeling of wanting to nettle the piss out of Widowmaker until she talked, but _damn_ , it was hard.

Widowmaker spoke carefully, thinking out her words. "Gabriel Reyes has done many things to me, Lena. He has tortured me almost beyond the brink of sanity." Her mouth twisted in a snarl. "For some reason, I keep coming back." She shook her head, the hard expression on her face softening by mere fractions. "He uses people in effigy - as a replacement for her. He's called me her name more than once."

Wintery winds of realization rocked Lena back, her head thunking on the wall. _That's_ why she had a predisposition for hating Angela. Reaper had ingrained it into her.

Silence stretched out between them like a fat, lazy cat. It was not uncomfortable, but it was noticeably there.

"I'm sorry, Amélie." The words left Lena's mouth.

Lena's companion did not speak, and Lena looked up from their clasped hands to see tears rolling down Amélie's pale cheeks.

Amélie didn't move. She didn't speak. She just let the tears roll down her face.

Lena felt a surge of panic set her on fire - the fight or flight response of the century. "A-are you okay…?"

"I need…" Her fingers tightened uncomfortably hard around Lena's. "Can you tell me if something is real…?"

Lena nodded fervently, anxiety turning her stomach to lead.

"I don't… know if you would know."

Lena squeezed Widowmaker's hand lightly. "We can try."

Widowmaker relaxed slightly, leaning against the wall a little more. Shining tears still trickled in diamond pairs. "Gérard loved me, didn't he?"

 _Oh. Oh god._ Lena swallowed hard and couldn't look in Widowmaker's eyes. The pain of that knowledge fertilized her guilt and grief like an insidious weed. Her own feelings… She could shape Widowmaker if she wanted. _No._ Widowmaker's life and mind had been shaped by so many uncaring hands. To manipulate her like that would make Lena the worst kind of monster.

Lena's throat felt dry. "He loved you very much. He loved you more than anything."

Tears dropped onto Lena's hand over Widowmaker's. At that point, she wasn't sure whether her own eyes made that mistake or Widowmaker's. Grief pulled at Lena's heart. She missed her best friend. She missed Gérard. She missed practically living at the Lacroix's. She felt responsible for Gérard. She remembered her last words to Gérard.

 _Be safe, Gérard. Take care of her._

Widowmaker's voice was quiet. "And you…?"

Lena swallowed. Tears flowed freely now. She didn't try to hide it. She didn't want to carry that burden alone anymore. Hana knew, but they didn't discuss it. Widowmaker. Amélie. Should know. It had been too long a secret.

Her broken voice sounded desperate and fearful, as if she was afraid of her own answer.

"Yeah…"

The next second and a half was a blur to Lena, surprisingly. She was used to things happening all too quickly, but in her finest daydreams, she'd never imagined this. Widowmaker, Amélie Lacroix, turned Lena far enough away from the wall, tears still in both sets of their eyes, and gently pushed her onto the mattress. Lena felt Widowmaker's steady weight on her stomach before her brain caught up. She smelled strongly of strawberries and faintly of sweat. Lena found herself trapped in the honey-golden eyes of her best friend and let out a short, confused sigh. Surely, she'd fallen asleep somewhere along the line and was making this up in her head. Surely, she was dreaming.

Amélie's face had a soft quality to it - a tentative streak marring the her usually sure visage. Lena's heart almost stopped entirely. Widowmaker, a splintered identity from Amélie, looked down curiously. Her purplish lips parted and her breaths came quick. Lena's face flushed as she could feel the very shape of Widowmaker's body against her own. The line had blurred somewhere between Amélie and Widowmaker.

The thought didn't linger long. Widowmaker leaned closer to Lena, their faces a mere hair's breadth apart. Lena could feel Widowmaker's minty breath mingling with her own. Her head swam, and her vision focused and unfocused too rapidly. Widowmaker was so close. She was definitely dreaming.

Her heart stopped again as cool, careful lips touched her own. Lena's heart was getting the workout of its life. But it wasn't exactly a kiss at first. Widowmaker's insecurity held her there for a moment before settling into an actual kiss. Lena didn't try to hold back.

 _Her lips are even softer than they look_.

Deep relief flooded Lena. Her burden didn't feel as heavy. She closed her eyes and let the feeling ride for as long as she could. Her hands began to reach up, carefully resting on Widowmaker's sides - her hips - and noticing how scarily thin she was. As kisses went, it was as gentle as could be, almost chaste - little more than Widowmaker's too-cool lips pressed against hers, but Lena didn't need body heat for her blood to feel as though it was about to burst into flame. Widowmaker was already as physically close as possible, but deep hunger stirred in Lena's chest. She wanted that _damn_ chronal accelerator out of the way. She wanted to feel Widowmaker's body against her own. She'd spent too much time seeing her and feeling her briefly in embraces to not wonder how she felt _closer_.

Widowmaker pulled back suddenly, her face bright with a blush, and looked down at Lena, eyes half lidded and hands wandering to her chronal harness's straps. Lena touched Widowmaker's hand softly, drawing it away from her device. "I can't," she said in a pained whisper. She wanted to damn it all and go for it, but she might stay in place. She might also fly apart. Nothing was worth being In Between again. Not even that.

Widowmaker bit her lip and went back for another kiss. Lena didn't hesitate. This kiss was rougher - Widowmaker pinning Lena in a way that disallowed much movement other than gently roving hands along her back. Widowmaker nipped at Lena's lower lip, eliciting an involuntary, low growl. That seemed to please Widowmaker from the smile Lena could feel against her mouth. She let herself feel the emotions that came with it. Nostalgia. Ecstasy. Confusion. Low grade fear.

How long had it been since she'd been this close to someone?

Since before Amélie.

Could this be a plot against her?

 _Does it matter? She's_ _ **here**_ _,_ whispered a small voice in her mind - one of the only ones not reduced to caveman-esque grunting.

Widowmaker's hair was down and veiled their kiss like garden walls keeping in a precious secret. It tickled Lena's cheeks, but she didn't complain. She looked up at Widowmaker, who broke the kiss again, face more flushed than even previously. Lena noticed that the blush crept down under her tanktop's neck. Almost angrily, she wanted to tear it away and just… look at her. See her skin. _Feel_ her skin.

"Lena…" Widowmaker's sigh stoked the fires Lena had so desperately tried to squelch for years.

She was too close to the enemy.

She didn't care.

Lena reached up, now freed from Widowmaker's tight control, and brushed the hair out of her eyes, stroking her cheek softly.

Widowmaker recoiled with a look of horror so plain that Lena felt sick. Widowmaker reeled backwards almost far enough to fall off the bed. She shielded herself with her forearms, as if expecting a blow.

"W-Widowmaker, what…?" Lena's words were hushed and breathless. She reached toward Widowmaker..

Widowmaker clutched her chest much like earlier. Her words were tight and fierce despite labored panting. "Do not touch me."

Lena froze, panic stricken and heart beating way too fast. Things had been going too well to sustain for very long. Lena knew that already. Why had she encouraged Widowmaker? A shaky breath escaped her lips, almost expecting the cold in her chest to condense the breath and make it visible. She searched for words, but it was like trying to find a light switch in the dark in a foreign place filled with booby traps.

She didn't move closer to Widowmaker, just watched, concern mounting enough to make her want to scream. She almost couldn't bear to be so intimately close and have Widowmaker ripped away. No, she'd pushed Widowmaker away. Somehow.

Widowmaker's pained expression changed slowly like melting snow in early spring. She loosened the grip on her chest and eventually stopped leaning away from Lena. It felt like hours had passed. That spark Lena had felt had long since died out, replaced with caution, curiosity, and care. Her legs suddenly felt like weights had been thrown onto them, the tension Lena carried rested in her legs, allowing her to flee the scene if necessary. She hated running away, but she was smart enough to know that, sometimes, it was the only option.

Widowmaker didn't look up from the comforter but offered her hand. "I'm… sorry, Lena. I-" She swallowed. "I don't know what came over me."

Lena shook her head but still did not take Widowmaker's hand. "No, no, no. Don't worry, love." She wasn't sure for which part Widowmaker was apologizing. She definitely didn't want her to be sorry for the first part. "I, uh… What part's the apology for?"

Widowmaker grimaced, eyelashes fluttering and her hand touching at her chest again. Her voice was barely audible. "All of this."

Lena brushed her fingers against the inside of Widowmaker's wrist. The bruises she'd had there were gone. She'd probably have more after tomorrow. "Don't apologize, love. You don't have to apologize. Didn't do anything wrong."

Widowmaker gently stroked the back of Lena's hand with her free one. Her touch had changed drastically in so few days. She'd been rough and definite, every movement measured in what would require the least energy. She moved… robotically - so far removed from the grace of her dancing. Over the last few days, her movements became less strictly measured - less jerky and more fluid. Her touch was gentle, now - tentative and unsure.

"I struggle with these… new…" Her mouth turned down. "These new feelings are difficult to understand. I acted on impulse. I should not have physically engaged you."

Lena snorted, eliciting a frown from Widowmaker. "I'm not laughing at you, love."

"Then why are you laughing?"

"If you didn't notice, I didn't exactly try to stop you." Her voice trembled. _Stupid voice. How am I s'posed to be cool now?_

A coy smile graced Widowmaker's soft lips. "I _do_ suppose that was an indicator to continue."

Lena felt a blush coming on and turned her face away slightly. She needed to ask. "What… what did I do to make you pull away? Did I hurt you?"

Widowmaker shook her head, loose hair shifting about in the lamplight. Lena wanted to touch her hair again. "Gabriel Reyes-" _Instant mood killer_. "Oftentimes, he prefers to treat me in a manner that reaffirms his status over me. He… enjoys using my hair against me. I reacted unfairly to you."

Lena bit her lip. "Wanna talk about it?" A pause. "Oh, don't worry about lil old me. I'm tough. I won't do it anymore." It was a small moment of crestfallen disappointment, but she would live.

"During the times he tortures me -"

"Does he see to it himself?"

"Yes. He administers my resets personally, now. My previous doctor became lax, in his opinion. Reaper also started my treatment himself. It was his first act as a member of Talon. He wanted me to fear him - respect him… Be _loyal_ to him. Oftentimes, he uses the only things he knows in order to gain traction over an individual." She cringed. "He likes to examine me thoroughly. He holds me so that I may not run away, which I have not tried but once." A short silence. "That was all it took."

Lena felt her stomach churn in revulsion. "And he grabs your hair?"

"By the fistful," said Widowmaker simply, as if reading a very boring report. "My face, as well."

Lena cringed. She didn't want to dredge up bad memories for Widowmaker, especially if she'd been conditioned by _him_. She looked down at their hands and suddenly felt very small. The fact that Widowmaker showed _any_ physical dependence was greatly important to showing her mental state. If Reaper had watched and tormented her the same way, Lena wasn't sure if she would ever want anyone to touch her. Ever.

"I won't do it unless you explicitly allow it," Lena replied solemnly.

Widowmaker gave a tired smile in response, a small yawn cutting her off.

Lena could see the fatigue from the day beginning to wear on Widowmaker. She had one more burning question. "Has he… ever…" She didn't know how to say it. "Has he ever put his hands on you?"

Widowmaker's brow furrowed deeply. "I already told you that he inspects me."

"No, love, I mean…" What did she mean? "Uh." She blushed. "Sexually."

Widowmaker's eyes went wide. "Oh, mon Dieu! No!" She shook her head vigorously. "I am a tool, nothing more. To him that would be like… Like an inanimate object. He would never lower himself to such…" She trailed off. "But I'm not a tool, am I?"

Lena shook her head, feeling a little relieved. She'd have to kill him at _least_ a hundred times more if that had been the case. Not that the constant torture was any better, but… somehow, it would have been different. "No, you aren't a tool. You're a person."

Widowmaker let out a breathy laugh. Lena liked seeing her smile. "I do not often feel like a person, chérie. Mostly, I feel as if I am a corpse walking among men." She held Lena's gaze. "You, however, make me feel _alive_."

Lena's heart fluttered. She couldn't express how long or how deeply she'd been waiting to hear those words. Widowmaker wasn't exactly Amélie, for sure, but Lena didn't think she minded who Widowmaker was either. She rather liked Widowmaker.

Lena's voice dropped to something low and uncertain. "Are you feeling better…?"

Widowmaker straightened her back and stretched. Lena noticed the curve of her spine as well as the curves of her front. Her face turned red, but she didn't look away. "Yes, chérie. You know how to calm me."

Lena laughed a spot before going back to her quiet tone. "Are you tired?"

Widowmaker nodded. "Yet, I do not want to sleep, for I know what tomorrow brings."

"Want me to hold you?"

Widowmaker paused for a long moment, her lips pursed. "Will you…" She took a shaky breath, mixed with a laugh. "Will you be alright if I kiss you again?"

Lena froze, her face flaring up brighter and hotter than a forge. "UH."

Widowmaker moved sinuously, sensually. She pulled Lena down to the mattress once more - more gently this time. Lena lay facing Widowmaker on her side, her heart pounding. The steady hum of her chronal accelerator provided familiar comfort in such foreign territory. Her best friend had made a move on her, which should have been cause enough for joy, but the memory of Gérard still remained. Tears came up again, just in time for the contact of Widowmaker's lips on her own - more certain this time than the first, but gentler than the second.

She pulled back. "Lena, why do you cry?" She bit her lip, eyes filled with worry. "Have I done something?"

"Do you _remember_ Gérard? Not just know of him." Lena's voice sounded as broken as she felt. Her heart ached for closeness but also ached in grief. Her best friend was there, but the memory of her husband remained.

Widowmaker frowned deeply before stating, "He is in my memories. He is a part of me, still. He knew… Amélie's feelings, and he respected them. More memories of him resurface by the day. More memories of my old life. The person I was before Talon."

A chord struck in Lena. "Amélie's feelings?"

Widowmaker nodded, the sound of her face moving against the sheets made Lena's heart do backflips. Their hands clasped one another's caringly. "She… I…" She frowned some more, almost looking comical. "Amélie cared deeply for you. I believe that her feelings and mine are… intertwined." She nodded. "I think that Gérard knew that, as well."

"Do you love him, still?"

The question hung in the air, and Widowmaker's soft fingers went rigid. "Gérard Lacroix is dead by my hand. I feel grief for him. I think that I miss his companionship. I cannot identify what my feelings regarding him actually are." She looked up at Lena again and squeezed her fingers gently. "I do know, however, how I feel about you."

Lena's face went red again. Soon, it would probably get stuck that way. "H-how _do_ you feel about me?"

The old version of Widowmaker slid firmly in place, eyes glinting with a cold, amused light. "You are _mine_ , Lena Oxton."

Lena's heart skittered. Of all the things she anticipated, possession was not one of them.

"Widowmaker, I…" Her eyebrows got together on her forehead, getting so close that she looked an awful lot like Count Olaf. "I'm my own person."

Widowmaker tilted her head, an odd feat for laying down on her side. "What do you mean?"

"I'm not _yours_ , Widowmaker." The words almost hurt Lena as soon as they came out, but Widowmaker smiled.

"You are no one's just the way that I am not a tool?" Widowmaker sounded almost… skeptical?

Lena refused to let herself be unsettled. She nodded. "Exactly like that."

Widowmaker rolled her tongue over her bottom lip, and Lena couldn't stop her eyes from noticing. "I suppose, then, that I should rephrase. I want to be there with you. I want to feel your skin. I want you to teach me how to deal with…" She motioned vaguely toward the room. "This. I want to protect you, and I want you to protect me." She gritted her teeth, almost angrily. "I want to make sure that no harm befalls you because I know you will do the same for me." She still had that glint in her eye, though. _You are mine, Lena Oxton._

Lena nodded, ready to reply, but Widowmaker kept going.

"I want to wake up beside you. I want to hear you talk. I want to hear you laugh that _annoying_ little laugh. I do not want you to cry, Lena Oxton. I want to make sure that no one ever makes you cry. I want to be there by your side." She opened her mouth as if to keep going, then closed it. What was that she'd said back when they'd all been together? That she was the only one who was allowed to kill Lena? A joke, surely. But…

 _The only one._ Did Widowmaker still believe that?

No. _Don't think like that._ She had to have faith.

Lena blinked several times. "Then don't go back to Talon."

Widowmaker laughed bitterly. "You know that I must."

Lena sat up. "No, you don't. You can defect. We'll take care of you."

Widowmaker paused a long moment. "No. Not yet."

 _Not yet_.

Widowmaker's face contorted again in agony. "May we be quite finished with this?"

Lena nodded and snuggled back down under the covers, her fingers once more lacing through Widowmaker's. "I care about you, too, ya know."

Widowmaker smiled. "I do, chérie."

Lena went for the lamp, feeling the exhaustion creeping into her own bones. Right before cutting out the light, Lena asked, "What brought all this on?"

Widowmaker smiled, dazzling even in the low light. "You asked me a question, and I promised many nights ago that I would tell you the whole truth."

"Yeah, but… How long has it taken you to figure this out?"

"Until you asked the right question." Widowmaker's reply was simple, but Lena couldn't handle the lamp exposing her blushing face any longer.

She cut out the lamp and shimmied down close to Widowmaker, who put her forehead against Lena's. The low light given off by her chronal accelerator showed the softness of Widowmaker's angular face. She pulled Lena in. One again, lips that felt like they'd been in front of an air conditioner for an extended time brushed against her own. Lena reciprocated and wrapped her arms around Widowmaker, pulling her close.

She didn't want tomorrow to come.

* * *

The time for Widowmaker's release came all too quickly the next morning.

Angela and Jack, the makeshift leaders of this particular mission, had come up with a rough plan to get Widowmaker noticed without _them_ being noticed. They would fly to Sienna, Italy, to draw Reaper away. There were too many people in Florence who could get hurt in the crossfire, and anything to keep knowledge of the safe houses away from Talon was necessary.

Lena didn't understand at first why Angela would want to watch Widowmaker until Reaper retrieved her, but it dawned on her during the flight.

The potential for Widowmaker to become severely wounded or captured, without her rifle or grappling hook, was exponentially higher than if she'd had her weaponry. Was Angela… protecting her?

Either way, an unpleasant hand gripped Lena's heart as they loaded onto their small plane, bundled up to help avoid recognition. Her pulse pistols hung heavy on her waist, and Lena wasn't sure whether or not she was glad to have them. She didn't want this to turn violent, but if it did, if Reaper wanted to make an issue of things, she'd be glad she had them. She shivered at the thought. No matter what happened, they wouldn't be able to kill him. Not permanently. He was just one man, though, to the five of them. Right?

She wasn't flying this trip, as much as she'd begged to. Hana was.

Jesse McCree and Angela Ziegler sat across from Lena, Widowmaker, and Jack, both sets of eyes firmly locked on Widowmaker's hand - which was wrapped around Lena's. Widowmaker did not lean toward Lena. She gave no indication of mental presence. She stared straight ahead, unblinking. She was barely breathing.

McCree didn't look angry about it, but his gaze was… intense. Lena refused to shrink away the way she wanted to. Angela's face was more difficult to read. Lena wasn't sure even she knew exactly how she felt.

Seeing Widowmaker be so distant after their intimacy pained Lena. Talon seemed to be ripping Amélie from her all over again. Her fingers felt stiff from holding Widowmaker's hand so tightly, but she didn't loosen her grip. At this point, she was almost sure her fingers would make the squeaking noise of a rusty hinge if she tried to let go. She could still feel Widowmaker's lips, the quiet curiosity and need, her cool skin on her own. _You are mine, Lena Oxton..._

Jack kicked back beside Lena, his visor hiding whether his eyes were open or not, and folded his arms loosely across his chest. His rifle was stored somewhere in back, along with Angela's caduceus. If Widowmaker tried to make a break to hijack the plane, he wouldn't need it. No one spoke on the flight to Siena.

Fareeha had stayed back to hold down the fort while Genji worked on Zenyatta. Hana wanted to do more than just fly the plane, but they couldn't rightly have her running around in a bright pink suit. That'd just blow their cover even faster, and it was too dangerous for her to go out in street clothes. Even so, she was wearing a bulletproof vest under a jacket, and she looked a bit silly and puffy as a result.

Widowmaker's jaw clenched as the aircraft's engine switched to a lower frequency. They'd be landing soon.

"It's going to be alright," Lena whispered.

The whisper sounded loud in the cab. Everyone looked at Lena. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and she swallowed. Her palms were sweaty too.

Widowmaker shifted her thousand mile stare to Lena and said in a low voice, "No, it isn't."

Her grip tightened on Lena's, and she looked straight ahead once more. Lena sound see her struggling to hold back tears. It was so important that Widowmaker could cry again, but at the same time, seeing it _hurt._

Jack leaned over around Lena and rested his elbows on his knees. "Look, kid," he said to Widowmaker. "You're a wealth of information, and you're in a lot of danger going back to Talon. If they find out that you know what you know…"

"They will remove me from the equation, yes," said Widowmaker calmly.

Lena could feel her nature's warmth slipping away.

"This is your last chance to back out. We can take you back to the main base and help you, if you want. If you're an ally, not a prisoner, we will do _everything_ in our power to fight for you." Lena could hear the push in Jack's voice, subtle but still there. "If we lose you now, we lose an informant. You could be more."

Widowmaker shifted her gaze to Jack, and Lena felt the steely glare's effect despite not being the direct recipient. "My debt to you is paid, Jack Morrison. I am not _yours_. Do not treat me as if I am a member of this mess of a freedom fighter organization."

Lena stifled a wince.

Jack nodded once and leaned back, folding his arms again.

They landed a few minutes later.

The landing jostled everyone a little more than if Lena had been flying, she thought with a little bit of jealousy, and everyone began knocking about to exit the craft. Widowmaker sat a long moment after Lena pulled away to fiddle with her own seat buckle before she'd started unfastening her own. Lena wanted to protect Widowmaker, but in such a short time, it would be out of her hands entirely. It wasn't fair, but when had her life ever really been?

Widowmaker made a call at a gas station payphone to a number she called a "decoy number." Apparently, it was the number to a highly monitored phone to be used if a Talon agent had been stranded without extraction. Lena had to admit. That was a pretty smart idea on their part.

" _This is Widowmaker, Model R1."_

 _Confused, Lena mouthed to Jack, "Model?"_

 _Jack shrugged with a noncommittal hand gesture._

" _After the shot, my gear was damaged - both rifle and cuff. Moving with such damaged equipment would have put me at risk. I have been laying low until things calmed. A ten minutes' walk west from l'Basilica dell'Osservanza leads to a clearing in a wooded area. There are no citizen observers and, therefore, is a secure location. I will make my arrival at 1400 hours." Click._

Lena swallowed _._ The contact had been made, but there was still time to recant, right?

No. Not anymore.

Angela and Jack pulled down their weapons from their racks near the roof of the craft as McCree shuffled along behind them.

"I guess mom wants me to stay in the car on this trip." Hana rolled her eyes and pulled out her phone. A familiar tune hit Lena's ears. Some card game, she thought. Once, Hana had tried explaining it to her but to no avail.

"Yes, child. We will need you to be safe, and to be able to flee if necessary. I expect you to save yourself, if it comes down to it." Angela's voice was hard and definite.

Hana's eyes, which tracked the phone screen, froze, silent fear washing over her face like the incoming tide. Lena nudged Hana's head with her elbow before joining the others. It wasn't often that she saw fear on Hana's face, but Lena thought she could guess why - Hana was used to being in the middle of the fray, where she could do the most good. Sitting here, alone, all but helpless, waiting for the possibility of abandoning her newfound family - that was far outside her comfort zone.

"Yeah, don't worry, love. I'll drag 'em all back, no matter what." Hana looked up with a thin lipped smile, and Lena winked back. It was just a drop off. That was all.

"Yeah, right." Hana nodded and played a card just before her turn ran out. "Just be careful."

Lena nodded.

Widowmaker still sat in the same position when Lena turned around. Lena rested a hand gently on Widowmaker's shoulder. She didn't want to say that it was time, but her heart ached with the truth. She didn't know when she'd see Widowmaker again. And when they did see each other again…. Would they be allies, or enemies? What if Talon could torture all of this away, the way they had before? The clash of the angry flush of heat and the freezing cold of her fear and sadness combined to create the perfect storm. No tears came, but the corners of her eyes felt as if small needles stabbed her tear ducts.

Widowmaker whipped her head toward the three standing at the back of the craft. "Jesse McCree."

McCree shifted, one hand on the butt of his revolver. "What?"

"I need you to punch me."

Lena choked on a spit string from her own sharp inhale. Jack snorted, and Angela barked a laugh. McCree just blew out a cloud of cigar smoke in a throaty chuckle. Hana just quirked an eyebrow and became _very_ invested in her game.

Widowmaker's brow furrowed, and she stood, all her lethal grace towering over Lena. Lena's arm was now reaching up to rest her hand on Widowmaker's shoulder. She lowered her arm, feeling a little silly. "I need you to punch me in the face."

McCree's eyebrows reached for the sky when he saw her grave face. "And why's that, darlin'?"

She sighed impatiently. "Talon believes that I have been beaten and battered. If I show up with merely a chipped tooth, they will believe that I _lied_ to them." She sneered, her agitation more than apparent. "You still want an informant, correct?"

McCree shuffled, crossing his arms loosely over his chest and widening his stance. "Well, yeah. It'd be useful from what these guys are sayin'."

Widowmaker's exasperation came out in a venomous hiss. "Then, punch me like you mean it."

And he did.

The sickening noise made Lena's stomach churn, and she was suddenly very glad she'd not had much to eat that morning.

The son of a bitch hadn't even _tried_ to not make it hurt. Anger flared, but she forced it down. No. No, this was what Widowmaker had wanted. That didn't make her want to try to hit him back any less.

When Lena tried to remember his exact movements, she couldn't place them. She shivered. Jesse McCree was fast. Faster than she could match.

Widowmaker straightened, a great weal already on her cheek. Her eye was already turning. She smiled coldly, but Lena saw her shaking hands. Anger that sparked turned into barely controlled rage.

Angela tightened her mouth down to a fine line with no pink rim to speak of. She was entirely displeased. "Jesse, that was unnecessary." She snapped her caduceus toward Widowmaker and reduced some swelling. "You have to make it look aged, at least." A pause. "I should fix your tooth, too."

Jack shook his head and took a deep breath, gesturing toward the back of the plane. "Let's give them a minute. We've got time."

 _No, we don't._

Angela nodded, clicked off her healing stream, and placed a hand on Jesse's shoulder. He grunted but followed out of sight. Hana turned the pilot's chair away from the two still in the cab.

Lena felt her heart jump around a bit as Widowmaker's eyes locked onto her own. "Chérie, you do not have to protect me."

Lena gave a forced smile. "'Course I do, love. Don't want anything bad to happen to you."

Widowmaker frowned a moment before breaking into a sad smile. It was a bittersweet moment.

"Lena, I do not know if they will allow me to live." Her smile faded, and her voice turned pensive.

Lena nodded, the ache in her chest growing deeper. "Yeah."

Widowmaker looked away. "If it is, indeed, my last day-"

Lena broke her off with a barely controlled lunge, her arms squeezing around Widowmaker's neck. Her own hot cheek against Widowmaker's.

Widowmaker froze for a moment before wrapping her arms around Lena's shoulders, and she suddenly felt very small.

"Thank you for showing me who I can be, chérie."

There wasn't time for another kiss.

Lena felt like control was slipping through her fingers, like she was slipping away in her own timeline. Powerlessness made her bones ache and her heart pound.

She was just as useless here and now as she had been trying to act in the fading Between. Even though she could reach out and touch Widowmaker, she couldn't interact. The path had been laid out before them both.

Widowmaker left the craft first, not looking back to Lena, but Lena thought she could see a shining streak on Widowmaker's face before she wiped it away.

Hana swiveled around after a minute and popped out of her chair, crossing over to Lena in a few short strides. She gave a side hug to Lena, made awkward by the bulletproof vest and jacket. Lena gave a small smile and a squeeze before walking out to see Widowmaker shedding her disgusting layers and rubbing dirt and leaves on her face and arms. Her suit still had bloodstains from the first time McCree beat her senseless. Lena watched from afar, not trusting herself to get closer.

After about ten minutes, Lena, Jack, Angela, and Jesse all hunkered behind a ridge, which was mostly obscured by trees, shrubs, and various juts of rock protruding from the sparsely covered, sandy soil. The grit ate into Lena's knees despite her suit acting as a barrier between her leg and the earth. The sweet smell of sweat reached her nose, and the body heat from her companions made her nauseatingly hot.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Eons passed, and kingdoms rose to power and fell in the time it took for the air to change. The air didn't exactly _change_ , but the birds, chirping happily, fell silent. The mild air gained a barely perceived chill, and the hairs on the back of Lena's neck stood on end.

Angela shifted, her eyes going wide and her hand going to her gun. McCree leaned forward at the same time Jack did. They had both drawn their weapons at some point, but so silently Lena hadn't noticed.

Black mist poured through the western treeline, faint at first but growing in thickness. A silent black form drifted into the clearing, mimicking a large bird of prey. A ghostly white mask stood against the mist in a spot of unarguable opacity.

The mist drifted toward Widowmaker, who stood in the middle of the clearing. Lena could tell how rigid she'd become, her face hard and unreadable as marble. She showed no cracks when facing the mist. She showed no fear.

Only cold, flat submission.

Lena's blood boiled.

Reaper materialized in his mist, taking a horrifyingly solid step out - the mist coalescing around until a solid form appeared.

If Lena hadn't been utterly enraged and horrified, it might have been fascinating.

Reaper took one quick look around before snapping his leg around and taking out one of Widowmaker's knees. Thankfully, Lena at least didn't hear anything crack - just a meaty sound of impact. She fell to a kneel just as he pulled a shotgun from its holster and put it to her head.

Lena started with a surge of fear jolting her into action, screaming, " _No!_ "

She was held back by Jesse's metal arm, but that did not stop Reaper's masked face from whipping their direction. Everything stopped for a fraction of a second. The silence was deafening.

"Our cover's just been blown," hissed Jack right before popping over the ridge, throwing his rifle to his shoulder.

Jesse threw Lena down, snapping his Peacekeeper into his right hand. In the span of a breath, six shots were fired.

Jesse moved fast, fingers dancing as he reloaded the revolver.

Jack. A short, controlled burst.

Angela. One. Her hand was shaking.

Reaper spun gracefully to one side; one of the shots ripped through his cloak, while the others merely blew harmless furrows in the dirt where he'd been standing. In the same motion, his shotgun whipped up toward them, getting off two shots, deafening even compared to the Peacekeeper. With his free hand, he backhanded Widowmaker hard enough to break her nose again with an audible snap. She pirouetted through the air and crumpled into a motionless heap on the ground.

A hollow buzzing noise whizzed over Lena's head, far too close for comfort.

She had to move fast.

With a pair of rapid blinks, Lena stood over Widowmaker's unconscious form. She unclipped her weapons from her belt, and with her loudest cry, she unloaded both her pistols at Reaper, the harsh sound filling her ears. Reaper laughed and swirled his cloak around himself, his body becoming insubstantial. Her pulses passed right through him. His incorporeal form, dribbling black mist from every pore, swirled toward her.

"Lena, no!" Angela screamed. "Get back!"

"Damn it, girl!" McCree shouted at the same time, leaping over the ridge. He hit the ground hard, then took off toward the two of them.

Lena hadn't been running on conscious effort.

Instinct.

Now, her more rational mind kicked in, and her first thought was to check on Widowmaker. She glanced down, a move that might have been lethal, but a relief - she was still breathing.

Several other shots rang out, the chatter of Jack's rifle mixing with the hum of her own accelerator and the singing of Angela's staff. As long as she was using it for its silvery outpour, she'd be defenseless. The caduceus took two hands to wield.

Then it dawned on her. She was alone.

Separated from the rest like a calf out from the herd. The hungry wolf growled. A snarl ripping out from across the clearing. He was coming. She stumbled back, her leg crying out, and her hands moved desperately, reloading.

"Over here, you son of a bitch!" McCree clashed against Reaper, all close range, hand to hand combat. Jack's rifle flashed up to a holding position, and Angela switched to her pistol. Lena could hear her curse. The risk of hitting their team member was too high.

McCree unleashed a flurry of blows, pushing Reaper back, but Reaper parried each without any apparent effort. They moved almost too fast for Lena to follow, in the quick glimpses she took between grappling with Widowmaker's unconscious body and grasping painfully at her own maimed leg.

This had all been a _mistake._ She couldn't fire on Reaper, not with McCree so close, and she'd be less than useless in close quarters. She was a pilot they'd given time abilities and a _gun_.

Glance up. Reaper took a pair of swings at McCree, who sidestepped left and right like a boxer. Glance back down. Pull Widowmaker a little further. Stumble as pain shot through her leg again, and she grit her teeth.

All that was left was to get distance between Widowmaker and Reaper. He'd been going to _kill_ her! They had no choice but to take her back now. She just prayed that she wasn't doing more damage to her poor injured head. She trusted in her friends; they would be able to win, no problem.

No sooner had she had the thought than an unearthly choking sound ripped from McCree's throat. Lena's gaze flew up, just in time to see a shower of blood sparkling in the night air. McCree's eyes were wide, glinting in the light, as his good hand clutched at his neck. He tried to stumble back, but Reaper had grabbed his metal arm with both hands. The clawed fingers of one hand glistened with blood. His face set with resolve, and punched Reaper's metal mask once, twice, three times, but to absolutely no effect. Reaper didn't move at all. Something metallic groaned.

"You are all _mine,"_ Reaper growled, and a dark wave of mist, intangible and black, washed over them all, and plumes of brightly colored smoke began joining the black.

Fatigue.

Sudden weighted fatigue hit Lena like a ton of bricks. Her fingers were suddenly too weak to hold Widowmaker's hand, and the unconscious woman's arm hit the ground bonelessly. She coughed, and a moment later she noticed the bright blue smoke coming from her every exhale, as if pigment were drawn out with every breath. "Wha...?" It seeped into the black mist around her, winding toward Reaper's waiting mask. Her vision wavered, and against her better judgement, she let loose a burst from her pistol. She never quite saw where it went. Her knees hit the ground, hard. Her mind grew fuzzy, damping down the terror that ate away at her insides.

Gold plumes poured from Angela into the melange, and she grew pale. Jack's own royal blue seeped from his skin and from under his mask, his forehead beading with sweat. Jesse howled again, fountains of ember colored mist flaring like a stoked fire with his pained rage and close proximity. The colors swirled and mixed and poured into Reaper, and as they did, he seemed almost to grow, as if their very life itself was pouring into him.

From what Lena knew, she thought hazily, it _was._

Lena saw Reaper's grip tighten on McCree's arm, then give a sudden, savage _twist._ Squalling metal changed pitch to a painfully loud warping sound, followed by a crack. The metal arm simply _shattered_ at the elbow, the remaining end twisted beyond repair and shooting sparks. With a roar, Reaper's metal mask hit McCree in a brutal blow to the face, and Jesse landed unconscious at Reaper's feet.

Reaper cracked his neck, seemingly impervious to the remaining team's shots, and kicked McCree hard in the chest. Something snapped. "Pathetic." The sickening sound carried over the clearing, as the sound of rifle fire filled the air again. Reaper's mask jerked back up to the clearing, and as his armored chest fizzled and sparked with the impact of the rounds, the black mist faded.

Lena felt herself rush forward as energy filled her again, getting in a few cheap shots before exerting a great effort of will to rewind herself enough to get away, just in time to avoid a double blast from two shotguns. Her breaths came quicker and her hands shook. Had she gotten Widowmaker far enough away to be out of danger?

Reaper let off a lazy shot her direction and threw down a gun. He pulled another, absolutely identical, from his coat.

Lena swallowed. She wasn't a priority.

Jack rushed the black clad man, trying to mimic Jesse's movements. As he ran, he fired from the hip, intending to cover himself, but he never even got close. Reaper swiveled away from Tracer, and with another cavernous _boom_ let off a precise shot. It took Jack in the head, and as Lena screamed his name his mask exploded, jagged bits of glass and metal shooting in all directions. Jack staggered back with a pained grunt, hands going to his face, to his eyes, to his cheeks, but thank god, he was alive. More than one piece of shrapnel had embedded itself in its face, each wound pouring blood. Even so, he rushed Reaper again, slightly off from his mark, and tackled Reaper's thick legs. Reaper hadn't expected him to keep moving after that, it seemed.

He toppled, and the two of them rolled around on the ground, each fighting for control. Jack didn't need to see too well to do that much. Heavy thuds reached Lena's ears, and she thought she could see Jack grappling for Reaper's mask. One second it was there, the next it had ripped free; Jack sent it spiraling out into the dirt.

It wasn't enough. He still couldn't get a good shot in.

Lena blinked to Angela and started reaching for a bomb. Angela grabbed her wrist for a moment, looking horrified. She didn't need to say it; Jack was too close. Feeling helpless, she fired off shots as accurately as possible. She'd loved her pulse pistols, but were they all going to die because her weapons were so unsuited to the fight?

Angela had been standing back, her staff bathing Jack in its bright light. Lena wasn't sure exactly how the caduceus worked or what its limits were; what she did know was that its powerful beam had the power to heal minor cuts and bruises, to invigorate you with strength to help make your motions tight and fast and more accurate. Angela usually wielded it with full attention, and two hands - all it took was one distraction for it all to go wrong. Holding it one handed, her expression broke into horror as her caduceus, confused by Jack's sudden change of position and altitude, switched to Reaper. She flicked it off as soon as she realized, but it was all too late. Reaper swelled again, his movements impossibly fast, was able to extricate an arm from the tangle, and as Lena watched, the hulking man took a few heavy swings at the side of Jack's head, knocking him unconscious. _Crack, crack, crack._ Jack's head lolled, bleeding profusely.

The sickening crunches brought acidic bile bubbling up in Lena's throat. She _could_ throw herself into the fray as Jack and Jesse had done, but she had no hand to hand training. Reaper could crush her skull in seconds. _He's vulnerable now, though. His face…_ She wanted to scream again. Jack and Jesse had been the best of them. Lena was injured, and Angela… Angela had never been the most lethal combatant of the team.

Angela reeled backwards, taking a pair of steps back with her eyes trained on Reaper. There was enough fear in hers alone to settle all of their scores.

Unthinking, Lena threw herself between Reaper and Angela as a last ditch effort. She raised her pistols in one final act of defiance. She wouldn't make it out of this one. The realization came over her like a thundercloud, but this much she knew - if Reaper got close enough for those shotguns to be lethal, he'd be close enough for her pistols to take him down.

Her life to buy time for her friends to escape.

Her knees wanted to shake. Her bullet wound throbbed. But still, she stood her ground.

They weren't going to make it out alive.

If Angela would just run…

Heat whizzed by Lena's head, replaced by a vacuum of cool air. Angela had grazed her. The shot struck Reaper square in the chest and turned his attention from Jack's bleeding face to Angela. Lena's ragged, irregular breathing ceased as the man's familiar dark eyes bored into the woman just behind her. His skin writhed like indistinct bags of snakes. She wondered, in horror, if his face hissed when you got close enough.

"Angela, darling." His sarcastic smile was dotted with a shifting smear of blood across his lower lip. His teeth stood against his dark lips as they curled away. "I see that you've missed me."

He opened his stance and took a step forward. Lena went for a pulse bomb, her fingers clicking the disk free with a practiced hand. Reaper dematerialized, black mist swirling him away and bringing him face to face with Lena. The bomb exploded harmlessly behind him. If she'd been focused enough, she would have worried about hitting Jack or Jesse. The only thing that drove her was to _protect_.

Time froze as he stood there in front of her. She staggered backward, slowly, _too_ _slowly,_ raising her pistol. Just a fraction of a second… This close, she could see the _hate_ in his eyes. The hate and the joy and the pain… They all swirled together within his irises, forming a mixture as horrifying as that of the feeling of life energies draining from her body a few moments before.

Gabriel Reyes smiled.

Faster than she'd have thought possible, he grabbed her by the hair and casually threw her aside as if she were a ragdoll. Her head clunked against a rock jutting from the sandy soil. Her vision went fuzzy and black around the edges, the world tilting and twisting crazily around her. Her ears rang, and she was fairly sure - she thought, oddly calmly - that blood was flowing.

 _That's it,_ she thought. _We're all going to die._

Her whole body shuddered, sending waves of agony knifing through her head, and she realized that she was crying. She tried to stand, but her limbs were jelly, and dizziness set everything to spinning horribly when she moved. There was no fighting him. Not anymore.

 _Have I done enough? Was my life worth anything?_

Jesse.

Jack.

Angela.

Widowmaker.

She couldn't save any of them.

 _At least Hana will be able to fly out of here. At least Hana still has a family in Drachten._

But who would warn her? What if Reaper followed their trail back to her?

What if he tortured their safe houses out of her before he let her die?

Nausea rolled deep within her, and she heaved, sobbing brokenly. Why had she ever thought there was anything in this life to be cheerful about? How could she have ever thought she'd help anyone?

The world just didn't work that way.

"Lena!" Angela's voice broke.

Lena didn't want to look. She didn't want to watch Angela die. But…

She didn't want Angela to die alone.

With a monumental effort, she turned her head to look at the woman who had become something like a surrogate mother to her. To them all.

"I'm here," Lena mouthed, but she didn't know whether or not Angela could hear her. "I'm here…"

The blood rang in her ears. She wasn't sure if she could stand up straight, but she tried again. The pulsing hum of her chronal accelerator matched the thrumming in her head. She swiveled to Angela as quickly as she could without falling over. She wouldn't let this man take her family away. Not Angela. Not Jack. Not Jesse. Not Hana.

And definitely not Widowmaker.

Reaper, clad in his black funereal gowns, reached Angela and tossed away her blaster as if it had been nothing but a child's toy. He loomed over her for a split second, his face perilously close to hers, and Lena saw her trying to get away. Angela Ziegler could not move fast enough.

The blood in Lena's veins froze. She wanted to desperately call out or attack, but she could scarcely move for the nausea her in driving waves. From a distance, she heard noise - the quiet sound of crackling leaves. A deer? She didn't bother to look. She'd thought all the animals had been scared away by Reaper's presence.

Lena's leg screamed in agony. She probably wasn't ever going to be the same after Widowmaker's shot to her thigh. She'd only made it worse by trying to use it. But what if she hadn't tried to use it?

Would Widowmaker still be alive?

Reaper seized Angela by the throat, and Lena could see his fingers tightening around in the same fashion that Widowmaker had whenever she'd been afraid. Lena distantly wondered if he had programmed Widowmaker to go for the throat.

Angela's eyes bulged, wide and bloodshot, and she scrabbled helplessly at his gauntleted fist. He didn't even seem to notice. She made soft choking sounds, and tears ran from her eyes, carving dusty streaks down her face. Lena had never seen her so _afraid_ , and that crushing despair hit her again. It was an almost physical force knocking her to the ground, an emotional boot on the back of her head.

Still, she took another shaking step forward.

Lena could see his skin pulsing with every breath. Writhing, angry and sick, with nowhere to go. Crawling. Her stomach let go, and she wretched until acid ripped from her stomach and burned her throat.

The soft pale skin of Angela's throat flushed as Reaper pushed his fingers into her throat even harder. Blood ran down where the clawed tips dug into her skin. His eyes. His eyes were haunting. They were the right shape, the right color - but they were the least _human_ thing she'd ever seen in her life _._ Lena fired a pair of shots off at Reaper. She was worried that her clip was running out all too fast. She wouldn't have time to reload. It would be another minute or two before her pulse bomb regenerated. She had to keep _going_ , and miracle of miracles, she _did._ She was bloody and hurt and lame and dizzy, but she could still move.

Reaper fired off a shot at Lena without even turning to look - she blinked out of the way, but she _knew_ the shot was accurate - before tossing his gun down and reaching for another within his coat. Where did they keep _coming from_?

He drew even closer to Angela's face. He went past her face to her ear, lips close enough to brush against her skin. He spoke, but Lena couldn't couldn't hear anything. His face had changed, raging storms of regenerating cells calming to a placid facial form. He might have even been attractive in another life. His eyes, burning with passion, turned to Lena, and she froze again, considering whether or not she could get out of this situation or, at least, save Angela.

She took a step back, blinking to stand over Widowmaker, who now whimpered in semiconscious fear and pain. As she came to a stop from her blurring across spacetime, she turned to face Reaper, who had arrived over Widowmaker's form a half a second later.

 _Was Angela dead?_ Lena's eyes flicked desperate from Reaper and back. It looked like Angela had crumpled to the ground, but she was still breathing. Or maybe that was just the way the world seemed to pulse dizzyingly in time with her heartbeat.

"Useless child…" He growled. "Unable to protect any of your teammates. Unable to protect any of them. Unable to protect _her_ when you know she is _dead_. Nothing is left."

Despair rang deep within Lena. Her fears were now in the open air. They hung like low, roiling clouds.

He aimed a shotgun at Lena. "You could be useful to Talon. I could give you a place there. Your life for theirs." Something in his voice appealed to Lena and her aching terror. "You've eluded even Widowmaker. Surely, there must be more to you than this _pathetic_ display in such a skirmish."

"How's this?" Lena's voice held steady despite the shaking panic already building so exponentially in her chest. Four of them had come today, and now, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, they'd come to die. Death was all she could see before her, and now that it was here… She took a breathy laugh. "Fuck you, mate."

Reaper's face began rippling again as if in time with an unheard baseline. His passionate, frigid tone scraped against Lena's ears like nails on a chalkboard. "So be it."

Lena set her jaw, but a flash of a hideously out of place poncho broke her vision just as Reaper started to pull the trigger. Something that wasn't a gunshot hit her in the chest, just over her accelerator. She staggered backward, vision swimming. Her eyes couldn't track exact movements. The nausea swept in again.

Jesse McCree's distinct grunts mixed with angry snarls. Reaper sounded similar. Two dogs fighting to the death.

McCree?

In a haze, Lena glanced over to where Jesse had been lying unconscious - and he wasn't there.

She stumbled back, the world whirling again, but her vision was clear enough to see what happened next. Jesse McCree had saved her life, and he was fighting Reaper - one arm gone completely to the elbow, his neck still bleeding badly. His breath came as a wheeze from his broken ribs as he ducked one of Reaper's blows, swinging his remaining fist in an uppercut. Reaper blocked that without hesitation, but Lena saw an instant before it happened that the punch had been a ploy; while Reaper's hands were occupied, he drove the jagged edge of his twisted, broken prosthetic into Reaper's gut.

Reaper coughed out a growl, staggering back for a moment, claws reaching into his cloak to replace the gun he'd dropped.

That was all the time McCree needed.

"Give my regards to hell, you traitorous motherfucker."

A shot rang out - the thundercrack sound of Jesse's Peacekeeper. The side of Reaper's head exploded out into the air, but as blood and brain and bone blew backward, it evaporated almost instantly into that familiar, horrible black mist. Reaper took one staggering step forward, the remainder of his face clenched in an expression of pure hatred, and then an impossible second. McCree spat and fired again, demolishing what was left of his face.

He didn't fall. He just… froze. From every inch of exposed skin the black fog poured away, swirling and coming together in a pool on the ground. McCree growled and fired the rest of his bullets uselessly into the cloud, but it sped away with little more than a soft hiss.

Silence filled the clearing. Horrible, beautiful silence.

Lena felt her knees hit something hard and unforgiving. She was having trouble focusing her eyes, but a cool hand wrapped around her upper arm, keeping her head from listing too far. She began to wretch once more. Silence lay over the clearing in a thick, apprehensive blanket.

Another cool hand rested on her cheek, and her eyelids felt heavy.

"Get the doctor, quick! Go before they find us!"

Jack's voice? No. Too high. Too feminine.

"Get out of here. They'll kill you if they see."

"I've got Ang."

Too many voices. Her eyes wouldn't open.

"I have the kid. Are you safe?"

"Oui. The lie will not come easily."

"Do it for us."

"Do it for her."

Cool black enveloped her searing, aching body as a strong arm scooped her up as if she were but an infant.


	18. Sleep

Angela wasn't sure they would ever get the smell of blood out of the tiny plane.

McCree had all but kicked the door in on Hana, who turned white as a sheet before flinging herself into action. Initial reactions may not have been the best for Hana, but she was more than reliable. Angela wished she could tell her that.

In fact, she wasn't in much shape to do anything, much less talk. Her head felt too heavy, and her throat ached. She wanted everyone to stay as far as humanly possible from her throat. Two people going after it in such a short time was just too much, even if the first time _had_ been mostly healed by the caduceus. The pinpricks where Gabriel's claws dug into her delicate skin burned, and something in her wondered if he ever put in those poison tips he'd talked about once before.

Jack had stumbled along behind Jesse, carrying Angela. He'd slung his rifle over his back and carried the remains of his visor and Angela's shattered caduceus resting on Angela's limp body. She could scarcely move. The most she could do was lean her head against Jack's shoulder and distantly remember him smelling exactly the same all that time ago. She tried to stay still and not whine when he jostled her too hard. His blood had dripped on her face. His fierce blue eyes focusing on what he _could_ see, which, Angela knew, was not much.

It was a miracle Jack could follow Jesse back, and it was a miracle that Jesse could even _walk,_ let alone carry Lena's limp body over his shoulder like a bleeding sack of potatoes.

Angela found gaps in her memory in retrospect. She'd probably blacked out several times. There was no _physical_ reason behind the gaps in her afterthoughts, but her distress probably caused her mind to blank out to spare her the unimportant details.

She was just so tired.

Getting back to the safehouse posed its own problems. Jesse passed out at least once on the plane ride but still didn't let go of Lena. His upper arm started looking more and more purple and swollen by the minute. Bloody talon marks colored his neck, similar to what Angela assumed was on her own but worse, but thank God, Gabriel had missed the jugular. Another miracle to add to the list. Jack was without his visor and glasses and had shrapnel lodged in his face. Lena was drifting in and out of consciousness, muttering incoherently. Angela heard her own name once or twice, though not as many times as the name _Amélie._ One phrase repeated itself, however, and each time it was almost clear - _You are mine, Lena Oxton._

Angela blanked out another block of time and felt herself come to as a fearful, strained voice reached her ears. Even in horror, Fareeha's voice was simply _melodious_.

Within minutes, Angela had been rushed in with the others, and Hana administered plenty of pain medication to everyone, despite Angela knowing better than to mask symptoms before examining them. Everything seemed to be happening incredibly far away from her.

" _I'll come back for you, Angela. If I didn't want to_ _ **kill**_ _you this much, I'd ask you to join me. Too bad."_ He had thrown her to the ground. " _You killed them. Not me. Now_ _**watch.**_ "

Angela had a mug in her hands, sitting at the kitchen table. Where had it come from? When had she gotten there? Her throat felt a little better. She took a long draught of the black coffee. She never drank coffee black.

Hana sat across from her, her bottom lip in the vice of her upper teeth. "Angela…" she said, as if she'd said it about ten times already.

"Mmm?" Angela took another drink of burning coffee. Tasted like shit.

"Where's your spare?"

Angela blinked.

"My…"

Caduceus.

Her main staff had been completely snapped in half when Reaper had thrown her to the ground. When she'd hit, she'd been afraid for a moment that the snapping sound she'd felt all along her body had been her spine.

"Closet," Angela mumbled quietly. Her head pounded as she spoke. "Might be dusty. Should find a rag to…" She lost her train of thought. What had she been talking about? Why did it matter?

Hana tottered off, still overly poofed with her bullet proof vest and jacket. She'd looked about as concerned with it as Angela felt about… everything at this moment. Nothing really appealed. Nothing really hit home.

 _Shock?_

The thought flickered through her head. It took a long time for her to process what it actually meant.

 _Probably_.

Warm hands rested on her shoulders, which she hadn't realized were more than a little chilly. Was the air conditioner on?

"Angela, we need you to look at Jesse's arm." Honeyed words from a literal goddess.

Angela didn't really care what she'd said. She just wanted to hear Fareeha talk more.

After another long moment, Fareeha shook her shoulders lightly, and a pain seared through Angela's head. "Ow…"

"Angela… Jesse."

"Arm, yeah. Right. I'm on my way." Angela pushed herself back from the table.

Man, her arms seemed long. For that matter, her voice sounded odd to her own ears.

Fareeha's eyes turned to Hana, who fumbled with the spare caduceus. It wasn't fancy. Didn't even really have a fun paint job. It was just… There. A last resort.

Last resort.

Angela shuddered, remembering the thoughts racing through her mind when Gabriel's hand had wrapped around her throat. She'd considered trying to bargain with him. She'd considered giving herself willingly to his cause.

If he'd just leave everyone alone…

He would never leave them alone.

He hated her too much.

Childish thoughts.

Jack grunted from the bathroom, and a metallic _plink_ reached Angela's ears. He was probably ripping out the shrapnel from his face on his own. Without topical anesthetic.

Something stirred in Angela's chest like a nest of waking chicks. She should do something about that.

Something…

Angela looked over to the couch to find Jesse with his head hanging low, his face positively green. His purpled arm complimented the color.

Complement wasn't the right word…

 _Oh, right. His arm._

Analogous. That was the word.

She walked over and knelt beside him. Her mind in a thousand places and nowhere all at once. In a few fumbling moves, she freed the mangled prosthetic still attached to his arm and cringed at the bloodied stump of his elbow. The wires from the warped metal dug into his skin, breaking it open. Angela wondered how long it'd been since he last had a Tetanus shot.

The claw marks on his neck didn't look too hot, either. Those could be fixed with a few stitches.

 _Or cauterize them_ …

No. Stitches. Her hands were sure enough for stitches. It was her mind that was wobbly.

She tended to his wounds more quickly than she thought possible, but when she looked back at the digital clock on the end table, twenty minutes had passed. Jack was in the room. When had he gotten there?

His face still needed tending to, but Hana was working the caduceus as well as she could. She flitted around from Jack to Lena, administering basic medical care. Angela felt herself smile. She'd taught Hana a few things just in case of this exact predicament. You couldn't just have one doctor for an operation like theirs. Especially when said only doctor threw herself into danger as often as she did.

What Hana knew was incredibly limited, but it would do for the moment. She was keeping Lena upright in a chair and trying to talk sense to her. Lena would follow the conversation for a few sentences before forgetting entirely and moving on to something else.

Something else.

What was Angela forgetting?

She should administer some kind of care to Lena. The stress compounded with the head injury could really mess her up. Hana was doing her best.

Angela sucked in a loud breath and tottered backward a few steps. McCree caught her with a strong arm. "Woah, there."

If she'd been less concerned she might have chided him for talking to her like a brood mare.

"We have to leave right now. Immediately."

Jack stood. "Do you think they'll come for us?"

Angela shook her head, the fog threatening to cloud her thoughts again. "I don't know if they will _right_ now, but with Gabriel having such a wound, there would be no way Talon would let such a thing slide. We've got maybe three days maximum before he's fully regenerated, and who knows what they'll be able to drag out of Widowmaker? They know we're here. We are _hunted_ now." She took another breath, feeling the cloying dense fog muddling her thoughts once more. Speaking so much at once was dizzying. She tried to push it away. "We have to go. We have to wipe Athena or transport her. We have to _erase_ ourselves."

Then something else hit her.

"Genji," she snapped. "Strap Zenyatta down. We're heading out in an hour."

Genji, who'd been uncomfortably watching from afar, snapped to attention and bolted. It wasn't like he had a face to read, but he seemed almost relieved to have something to _do._ Medicine wasn't his strong suit.

The burst of energy dissipated, sending her wobbling again and sitting beside McCree on the couch.

Jack grunted. "It's probably best if we leave. Even better if we split up."

Fareeha's voice came out hard, calm, and sure. "No. We all go back to Drachten together. It's too dangerous, especially with so many injured. We risk losing one of our own if we split up."

Weariness blended with the encroaching thickness surrounding her thoughts.

Hana stood, a grim expression on her usually carefree face. "I'll take care of Athena."

The television blinked on. "I would ask that you not forget my cranial compartment or my consciousness, if you don't mind."

Zenyatta.

Angela didn't want to admit it, but she'd almost forgot about his mind - her focus only on his body.

Lena piped up, her words a little slurred, "Wouldn't dream of it, love."

Angela felt herself smiling, a slightly odd feeling creeping in her chest. "Let's pack up, everyone."

* * *

Fareeha had taken Angela's arm and guided her into their shared room, her eyes filled with silent worry. She had long since stopped trying to crack into Angela's thoughts and feelings. It never really worked. Angela had to come out and tell Fareeha how she was feeling or what she was thinking. Angela smiled up at Fareeha and started pushing herself a little closer to Fareeha's chest.

"Angela, we must go. You said yourself…" Fareeha looked down at Angela, and Angela's heart skipped a few beats. "Angela, you are not yourself." She began pushing Angela away gently.

If she'd had the energy to pout, she would have. She just wanted to lay down with Fareeha. She wanted to nap. She wanted to lay down and forget Gabriel Reyes' hot breath on her ear. She wanted to forget how she'd shaken so terribly when he'd whispered to her. She wanted to forget the roughness of his voice and the hatred within. She wanted to _forget_ that horrible voice within her that told her there was still something worth saving in him.

She wanted to forget how much she missed Gabriel Reyes.

Fareeha could see something in her face, but then again, Fareeha knew her better than anyone else. Her voice turned quiet. "Talk to me."

Angela just laughed. It was a hysterical feeling. Her nose felt numb. Her cheeks were starting to follow suit.

Gentle, metallic hands cupped her face, and Fareeha's big, brown eyes were suddenly very close. "Angela, you are beginning to panic. I need you to take a deep breath."

Angela struggled to follow her instructions. In. Out. In… And she nearly choked as another crazed laugh bubbled out of her. Part of her recognized that this was _not_ good, that her reaction was bordering on hysterical. That just made her want to laugh more.

The look on Fareeha's face nearly drove a knife through her heart, all on its own. To see that kind of concern and pain on the face of her goddess? She felt herself fading further. Not into unconsciousness, but into something… elsewhere.

Fareeha's eyes filled with tears, and she closed them, taking a quiet breath before leaning in and pressing a gentle kiss onto Angela's lips. Angela pushed back, hard. She needed to feel _something,_ anything other than this hideous void that was filling her up to bursting. Before she could take in any further, though, Fareeha's cool, strong arms wrapped her in a gentle embrace, leaning in to rest her chin on Angela's shoulder.

She was still laughing. She couldn't stop. She couldn't feel a goddamn thing, and it was so fucking _funny._

Fareeha's soft, warm breath tickled her ear, so similar yet so utterly different to the feeling of Reyes's harsh breathing. Angela felt her lover begin to rock her gently, like one would a crying infant.

" _Yalla tnab Rima_ ," Fareeha's quiet voice sang softly in her ear, " _Yalla yjeeha el nawm…_ " It wasn't a tune Angela recognized, but it had the gentle sound of a lullaby to it. " _Yalla theb essala…_ " In all the time they'd been together, Angela had never once heard Fareeha sing so much as a note; she just wasn't the singing type. Now, her voice was slightly off key, more than a little rusty… but the Arabic seemed to sink into her skin, wrapping her in its peaceful embrace like a warm blanket.

Angela didn't know how long Fareeha held her like that, the pair of them gently rocking, the sound of the lullaby barely a whisper in Angela's ear. She focused in on it, let herself fade into it, to feel the warmth of Fareeha's chest and cheek along with the cool metal of her arms.

She barely noticed when she stopped laughing. She _didn't_ notice as silent tears ran down her cheeks. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that she was here, and in Fareeha's arms, and all of her friends that she'd come so close to losing were barely a few rooms away.

Fareeha's voice eventually came to a stop, drawing out the last few syllables, and silence filled the room. Silent but for the sound of their breath.

The chill and absence of presence that Angela had felt began to fade, her mind sharper than even before but still was weighed by fatigue and hazy post-panic.

"I wanted to go with him, Fareeha." She hadn't meant to get right to the root of the matter, but there it was."I thought, maybe, if I went with him, he would leave us all alone. Maybe he would just… kill me and be done with it all."

Fareeha shook her head.

"I know… I know. I just feel… There's something pulling at me every time I think of him, Fareeha."

Fareeha nodded and turned from the closet, gripping Angela's dainty hand within her own sure fingers. "You loved him, and he betrayed you. That does not make you bad for missing how things once were."

Angela shrugged, squeezing back. "I should be helping you, not moping."

Fareeha shrugged and took back her hand to shove clothes haphazardly into a large duffel bag. She never had been much of one for folding clothes.

Angela kept sitting there, though. Surely, it had been more than an hour. What kind of leader was she if she couldn't uphold her own time limits?

Fareeha shot her a look. "Angela, go make sure everyone else is ready. Tell them that I insisted on talking about the clearing."

Angela gave a curt nod and rounded up the rest of the kids, still feeling a little off kilter.

* * *

Hana flew back to Drachten, much to everyone's relief. Lena still wasn't much herself, but Angela managed to sneak in a sufficient exam to confirm that Lena did, in fact, have a raging concussion - definitely Type Three. She would be out of commission again for a few weeks. That wouldn't make her happy, but relief flooded Angela like rain washing over a desert plain. She could keep an eye on her.

Jack and Jesse sat elbow to elbow, leaning close and talking quietly. Without the mask, Angela could see Jack smiling. She liked to see Jack smile. He seemed to do that more when near Jesse. As content in conversation as they were, it was almost easy to ignore all the stitches and splints and heavy bandages.

"What ya talkin' 'bout?" Lena threw herself dramatically across the plane's short aisle and sprawled across the bench with a wince. Angela wished she could stop the poor girl from flopping about like an especially boneless crash test dummy, but, well, that was just Lena.

Hana whirled around, obviously having just set the autopilot. "They're talking about being in _love_." She puckered her lips in a kissing motion, hands clasped by her head.

Jack snorted. "Not exactly, kid."

Hana mimicked his snort. "Call me kid one more time."

He put up his hands, rolling his baby blue eyes. "Man's gotta know his limitations."

Jesse let out a guffaw. "Look at this one, would ya?"

Hana scrunched up her face. "That's a quote, isn't it?"

Lena stretched out, resting her head on Jack's thigh like a needy puppy. "Yeah, duh. Clint Eastwood."

Fareeha even made a jab this time, shifting her weight and wrapping an arm around Angela's shoulders. "I thought you, of all people, would know that."

Vague concern touched Angela's emotions, but she tried to keep it from her face. Lena was taking everything entirely too well. Everyone was too jovial for them just having had their collective ass handed to them. Maybe they were trying to cope. Was Angela even trying to cope?

She didn't know how.

She never knew how when it came to Gabriel Reyes.

"Fareeha, you look like your girlfriend just ran off with a dashing young cowboy and took your dog. What's up?" Jesse had a shit eating grin, but there was real concern tucked in there somewhere.

Fareeha snorted.

Angela smiled. "You're not her type, Jesse."

"Aw shucks, now. What _is_ your type, Fareeha?"

"A woman." Her answer was short and simple, but it made them all laugh anyway. It was hysterical laughter. Even Fareeha had a small, pained smile.

Lena rolled over a bit and looked at Fareeha after her bursts of giggles subsided. "Me too, love. Speaking of which, I'm a smidge fuzzy on what happened in the clearing. Did we win? What happened to Widowmaker?" She paused a moment before sitting up too quickly. "Well, we _obviously_ won, or else…"

She trailed off, insinuating what everyone else was thinking.

Jesse grunted. "We assume she was picked up by Talon after the shot on Reyes."

Lena's voice was positively incredulous as she snapped up. " _Assume?_ "

Jack snorted, a wry smile playing on his lips.

"Yeah, darlin'. _Assume_. I was a little too preoccupied getting you and the doc out of there as fast as possible to stick around with a gift basket for Talon." Jesse shrugged a shoulder. "I _assumed_ you would have been okay with that."

Lena worried her lip. "Thanks, Jess…" She sounded uncertain despite her thanks.

Angela thought she could at least marginally empathize. If they'd just left Fareeha behind, she would have been more than just a little distraught. For everything Lena had been through with Jesse, she was _definitely_ handling it better than Angela anticipated.

No, there was an edge there in Lena's eyes. An uncertain fear and doubt.

Jack seemed to pick up on it, too. "He's telling the truth, on this one. I promise."

She bit her lip again but nodded a little more firmly.

Angela tried to distract her from her obvious tension. "Come here, child. Let me get a look at your eyes."

Lena ambled over with an annoyed look on her face. Everyone else began talking among themselves, and Fareeha switched spots with Lena, taking her place on the bench with Jack and Jesse. Having them preoccupied took some of the pressure off of her.

"How do you feel, Lena?"

Lena shrugged and neutered her accent as much as possible. She _almost_ sounded American. "Dammit, Angela, I'm a pilot, not a doctor."

Angela felt herself smiling and quirked an eyebrow. "I'm fairly sure that, being the doctor, that's my line."

Lena laughed, but as she squeezed her eyes together in her trademark laugh, Angela could see her blinking away tears.

Ah, there it was.

* * *

Angela stepped out behind everyone else, leaning a little heavily on her staff for support. Jack had offered his arm and shoulder, but she'd refused. She didn't want to worry them. Fareeha still stayed close by without crowding Angela's space. Her own pride surely would have physically pushed Fareeha away like a forcefield.

Zarya's shock of bright pink hair shone through the back door's windowpanes right before the door burst open with a hearty hale from her booming voice. She was much like a very large, very muscular, _very_ enthusiastic child.

"You have returned! We were incredibly concerned about your wellbeing! Write next time! A postcard, even!" Her warm eyes finally took in the situation.

McCree without half his arm, his throat heavily bandaged.

Jack in his glasses, his face covered in stitches and ugly purple bruises.

Genji pushing Zenyatta's body along with his head tucked underarm.

Lena stumbling, held up by Hana, who looked sleepless and grim despite her jokes on the plane ride.

Angela hobbling like an elderly woman and leaning on her staff, a good two feet away from Fareeha, who held various weapons and electronics.

"What happened, little doe?"

Angela gritted her teeth with a hiss. "Reaper."

Zarya's eyes went wide, and she muttered something in Russian. She snarled, "Were you followed?"

Hana answered for Angela, whose head had begun to ache. She just wanted a warm cup of tea. "No, I made sure that we weren't. Also, Jesse, here, shot that asshole in the head." She did a finger gun and a wink as her thumb-hammer went down.

"Aleksandra, can you get Winston to prep the work station? I have that segment of Athena's system here." Fareeha handed over a flash drive with Athena's logo and another with a "Z" written on it in silver permanent marker. "Also, this is Zenyatta's consciousness. Treat our friend well."

Zarya narrowed her eyes for a long moment before taking the flash drives, stomping off and muttering in her mother tongue. Angela cringed, but she trusted in Fareeha. If she'd thought handing over two of their… Zarya-Disapproved friends… was a good idea, Angela would just have to trust her.

They walked into the large house similarly to how they left the plane. Angela heard the loading ramp hiss shut as the door to the house closed.

Angela had just come in the door when Mei, bustling in the general sleeping area, stopped her flitting about and all but tackled Lena. Angela couldn't help but notice the look of pain to flicker across Lena's face before it turned bright red. Mei was wearing a tanktop and sweatpants which put Lena right at… Mei's chest.

 _Mien gott_ …

"I am _very_ pleased to see you all, even if you do look…" She trailed off, frowning. Her dimples were showing.

Lena laughed and pushed her away slightly. " _Thanks_ , Mei. How's things here?"

Mei beamed, dimples deepening. Her eyes sparkled knowingly behind her glasses. "Oh, quiet, my friends. Quiet." She did a small dance, bringing her hands up slightly and shifting back and forth. "Oh, I simply cannot wait! Let's go find Winston."

Athena's logo came up on the screen with the sound of her rebooting. Her voice came through the speakers, and the image of an unfamiliar dark metaled omnic with blue and red lights on various joints and its forehead lit up the screen. "Welcome home, everyone." The voice, however, was unmistakably Athena's. "I would like to inform you that I have successfully reintegrated my Florence personality, as well as that Zenyatta has safely made the jump to my systems."

Angela's mouth gaped.

"Athena, l-lookin' good, love," Lena sputtered.

Athena giggled. _Giggled_. "I would allow Zenyatta to access the channel, but his thoughts are a wee bit scattered. I'm giving him time to reorganize before he makes the leap to voice and video channels. Winston has been alerted of your arrival. He will be down shortly."

As if on cue, loud, lumbering steps creaked down from the front of the house. "Athena has given me the report on the happenings in Italy." Winston hadn't even waited to see them before he started talking. "We didn't know what happened. The last blip was the one you sent when you were in the air. I-"

He came around the corner. Everyone, more or less, had started propping on furniture, tired eyes growing heavier with need for sleep. The time change hadn't been drastic, but the day's activities had dragged their energy levels below zero.

Winston propped himself on one of his great fists and adjusted his glasses. "There are… quite a few of you." A knowing smile spread across his face. "I would like to show you our little project for while you were away. Follow me."

Angela wasn't sure he'd even noticed how beaten up they all were. Winston could be so brilliant when he wanted to be, but sometimes he could be… less than observant.

The ragtag band of vigilantes lumbered behind Winston and came across a long ignored door beside the spiral staircase that led to the second attic. He pushed open the door to reveal a well furnished set of stairs as opposed to the plain two by fours that had been there before, complete with a fine stair rail. Lena went first behind Winston, a steadying hand on his broad back. They all reached the bottom of the stairs in the dark. Dramatically, Winston flicked on the lights to reveal a large living area, complete with couches, a pool table, air hockey, and a hall off to the left side.

The walls were undecorated, and the floor was simple carpet, but it was simply unbelievable that Winston had managed to transform the basement into something so _useable_ in the time they'd been gone. The furniture all looked slightly used, but homey; lived in. There had never been enough of them here to bother getting the lower half of the safehouse cleaned up and furnished, but with all the newcomers…

"Winston, this is incredible!" Angela said. "You did this all by yourself?"

Winston chuckled, obviously slightly embarrassed. He loped slowly over to an oversized chair in the corner and eased himself into it. "Oh, no. I merely supervised and planned. Zarya and Mei were the ones who went out and obtained the material. We do have a few debts left in this town, after all."

Zarya grinned, slapping Angela on the shoulder just a bit too rough. "It was hard work! But worth it, I think, yes? We had feeling you might bring back friends!"

Mei smiled and put her hand on Zarya's bicep. "And, well, we figured that there wouldn't be enough room for everyone, so…"

Angela shook her head. "It's wonderful. I never even considered the idea that we might need more room. And the unfinished basement..."

Winston seemed to swell with pride. "Well, not all of the bedrooms down here are completely finished, but you should take a look around, if you like. Some of you will be needing them anyway."

Angela went off toward the hall to see it lined with doors, almost all of which led to similarly sized, fully furnished rooms. One door led to a large bathroom - not as large as the upstairs, but it still had a shower, a tub, and decent space in which to function. She walked into one of the rooms to look around closer. Fareeha had followed.

The door's lock clicked ominously behind her. She turned, questioning, but before she could form any kind of idea, Fareeha's cool hands pulled Angela's wrist along to the side wall. Angela felt a surge of embarrassment color her cheeks. And her ears. And her chest… She was a whole-body blush kind of person.

Fareeha planted a firm, warm, less than chaste kiss on Angela's lips, and Angela's breath quickened. With everyone inspecting the place, it wouldn't take much for them to notice the locked door, and from there to figure out what was going on - they'd point and laugh, at best, but Angela didn't necessarily want her to stop. With all the stress and pressing matters at hand while in Italy, they hadn't exactly been passionate together. They hadn't had time, and if they _did_ find the time, one of them was, invariably, too tired to get up to no good. But now… God, _now,_ Fareeha was all but trapping her against the wall with her body, pressed so close to her, cool metallic hands tangling in her hair… She found her arms wrapped around the larger woman, pulling her as close as she could manage. Fareeha was so _warm,_ and _big,_ and the passion she could feel coursing through her body...

Angela stifled a gasp as Fareeha popped the top button on Angela's high-waisted jeans. There were still about four more to go, but that didn't stop Fareeha from lifting Angela's shirt running a strong hand over her stomach. Fareeha had more than once thanked Angela for building in the ability to _feel_ , and she was definitely taking advantage of that ability now.

She unfastened another button, and Angela laughed breathlessly, a hushed whisper coming from her lips. "What are you doing, darling?" Her whole body had gone red, she was sure, and she would simply burn until she was nothing but a quivering cinder.

Fareeha kissed her again, losing herself in the two of them, and looked into Angela's eyes. For a moment, Angela was lost in Fareeha's warmth. She could almost forget her aching throat. She could almost forget the near death experience they'd all had. She could almost forget Gabriel Reyes' hateful, vengeful eyes. When Fareeha spoke, her voice was almost a growl. "I am so fucking glad to be home."

Angela laughed again but pulled Fareeha's hand away, kissing her metallic knuckles. Sometimes, she wondered how _much_ feeling Fareeha's prosthetics had. Angela had done her best to try to wire touch capability into them, but she wasn't sure how sensitive they were. Fareeha insisted that they were just as good as her hands had been, but Angela still wondered.

That question aside, Fareeha's fingers worked _wonders._ No other fingers she had ever met could compare.

Then, without a word of warning, Fareeha's _other_ hand was back, and they were slipping inside her jeans, and suddenly it was impossible to even think of anything else.

For a few blissful moments, there was only Fareeha.

* * *

She fastened Angela's pants back and gave a gentle kiss before leaving Angela standing there, red faced and flustered. A few measured breaths would shove it down. Temporarily.

Angela meandered back around to where everyone flitted around, staring in wide eyed shock and touching everything. The furnishings were… incredible. Among other things.

 _Mein gott._ How red must she still be?

Lena's incredulous voice broke the excited chittering, her accent thickening. "Winston, what the fuck, mate?"

Winston chuckled jovially and gestured to the room. "This. This the fuck."


	19. Solitude

Everyone slept like the dead that night. Lena, however, did not sleep well.

Her dreams were plagued by Gabriel Reyes and his menacing. His eyes carried over into her nightmares. She dreamed of Widowmaker laughing at her as Reaper squeezed the life from her like an orange.

He was smiling.

Lena woke in a dizzying cold sweat. She could feel the faded scream that wrenched her from her dreams and snatched her up as if she'd been drowning. Her throat hurt. She glanced at the clock, which blinked out an obnoxiously bright 3:34 AM. Lena grumbled to herself and scratched one arm. She hated 3:30 in the morning.

She pushed herself out of bed with more effort than she thought should have been necessary. Aching soreness pinched at her muscles, making them burn with every movement. Her legs felt even worse, becoming shaky in mere seconds of standing.

But she couldn't stay in her room, no matter how nice it was. Something about those dreams… Something made her feel unsafe.

It was probably the dream where Reaper had simply… phased through the wall and murdered Lena while she slept.

Lena shook her head, and a throbbing pulse seared through her head.

 _Concussion. Right._

Only one person would be awake at this time of night, besides Athena and Zenyatta.

Hana.

They hadn't necessarily talked much during their prolonged stay in Florence. Hana had tried her best to be there for Lena, and sickening realization dawned on her. She hadn't exactly been there for Hana. She had been too consumed with worry over Widowmaker. Sure, she'd offered a shoulder for Hana as always, but her actions didn't exactly align with her words. She never left Widowmaker's side for more than a few minutes.

Part of her screamed that she couldn't just… go to Hana. What would she say?

" _Hey, Hana, I acted like a real bell end out there in Italy. No hard feelings, alright?"_

Actually, yes. If Lena knew Hana at all, Hana would appreciate blunt honesty over a careful lie.

Lena made her way across the hall and knocked softly on Hana's door. A light streamed from underneath, but Lena didn't want to assume she was awake. Nothing else in the house stirred, and for a moment, Lena readied herself to turn away.

The door cracked open without its usual squeak. Winston must have also fixed that while they were gone.

"Oh…" While backlit enough to obscure most of her expressions, Hana didn't look exactly enthused to see Lena. In fact, she seemed absolutely devastated.

"Bad time, love?" Lena tried to sound less concerned than she was. She didn't think it worked.

"No… Come in." Hana cracked the door open a little more.

Lena walked through the door and noticed the wastebasket, which she presumed to be empty before their arrival, was half full of used tissues. Hana turned her face quickly, but Lena didn't miss the tear streaks on her face.

"Rough night?" _Christ, I could have done one better than that._

Hana laughed a short laugh. "You could say that."

"Wanna talk about it?" That was about as much as she could offer, but it was still something.

Hana shrugged a shoulder. "Can't sleep?"

Lena shook her head gently, remembering after the first shake that she did, in fact, have a head injury. _Ow._

Hana snorted. "Me either."

Lena ambled in and situated herself on Hana's couch. She didn't say anything. It was best to let Hana talk it out for herself.

"I can't… _do_ anything, Lena. I can put some bandaids on some cuts and bruises, but I can't do anything in battles. Everyone just keeps telling me how _valuable_ I am to this team, but I can't contribute. I can't help in a fight. I've got a pistol, and I'm not a bad shot, but I'm _nothing_ without my meka." She threw herself face first down on her bed. "And it's _bright pink_."

Lena frowned. "You fly."

Hana snorted and rolled onto her back, feet still sticking over the edge of the bed. "Yeah, but _you_ can do that if you'd stop being such an idiot and getting hurt."

Lena laughed. "Yeah, but I _am_ an idiot, and I _do_ keep getting hurt."

Hana did not laugh. "So that's all I am? Backup?"

Lena sobered, the smile all but slapped off her face. "No, Hana. You're much more than that. You know Athena almost as well as Winston. You're an excellent hacker. You get tons of information for us! We wouldn't know half of what we do without you, Hana."

Lena pushed herself up with a grunt and ambled over to Hana, flopping down onto the bed similarly to how Hana had done, but with a quiet, "Ow."

Hana pushed herself onto her elbow and looked down at Lena. "I almost lost all of you, Lena. How am I supposed to deal with that?"

Lena looked over with a glum expression. "You would have gotten out of there."

Hana shook her head with a frustrated groan. "That's not the _point_."

The meaning hit Lena. She blamed the head injury for not picking up on it sooner. "You know, I thought about the things that mattered when I thought I was going to die a horrible death."

Hana quirked an eyebrow. "What's that?"

Lena shrugged. "All I thought about was protecting my family."

An edge crept into Hana's voice. Jealousy? "Is Widowmaker a part of the _family_?"

Lena frowned. "Hey, not you, too." She thought a minute about how to answer Hana's question. "Yeah, love. She never left the family."

Hana's steely eyes bored into Lena's. "If she hadn't been unconscious, who do you think she would have sided with?"

Lena bit her lip. She didn't want to answer that question. "She would have protected herself. I think she would have… not exactly helped Reaper, but I don't think she would have gone against him either."

Hana grimaced. "Do you really think Amélie is still there? Is this… worth it?"

Lena played off the uncomfortable question with a laugh. "Hey, don't go sounding like Angela."

Hana smiled a little.

"Hana, I… I saw _her_. I saw Amélie in Italy." Lena could feel the desperation creeping into her voice. "She was _there_ , and we had to give her back. We were so close, Hana. She started _remembering_."

Hana frowned. "Does she remember what she _did_?"

"I- I don't think she wants to."

Hana gave a chuffed harrumph before throwing herself off her bed in one swift motion. "I don't know what to think about all this anymore, Lena. I wanted to believe in you. I wanted to believe that what you saw was real. That's why I encouraged you. But… I saw her in Florence. Really saw her. And after all that… I don't think I saw the same thing you did. She said that she was the only one allowed to _kill_ you, Lena. After everything that's happened, how can you brush that off as a joke?"

Fear clawed away at Lena's insides. The hum of her chronal accelerator seemed to get louder. The sound of empty loneliness. "Please don't abandon me, Hana. You're… the last team member I feel like I can trust."

"Jack believes you." Hana's bitter words hurt.

Lena shook her head furiously. Nausea crept up again. "No, he wants to believe in her, but you can tell that he's got one finger on the trigger."

Hana shrugged and pulled out a bag of Doritos. "Could have fooled me."

That took Lena back a good step. Had she just been being paranoid? She wanted to turn this conversation around as fast as possible. Her traction with Hana as support was all but gone, at this point.

"Hana, I-"

"It's not just you. Lúcio and I have been… having trouble. It's mostly my fault." She bit her lip and looked away. She clawed her hands down her face. "Everything happens so much."

Metaphorical tires squalled in Lena's mind. She knew they'd been having some kind of trouble, but not enough for Hana to actually bring it up. She was the type to shove down her feelings until it was just bothering her too much. Lena almost laughed to herself. It seemed like everyone left of Overwatch was some kind of similar in that realm.

"Wanna talk about it?"

Hana launched herself from the bed and began pacing in agitation. "We weren't exactly able to talk while we were in Italy, you know? Too risky, especially after shit hit the fan. I've just been… I haven't slept in fifty six hours, Lena. Every time I start to fall asleep I just…"

Lena felt her mouth drop open. How did she not notice that Hana had been suffering? Discomfort crept in. Her priorities had taken a great shift after the incident in Italy.

"One thing at a time, love." Lena took a breath. "Let's just focus on one thing and get through that."

Hana laughed. "Alright, Lúcio, then."

Lena nodded. "What's been happening?"

Hana gesticulated wildly, a grand departure from her usually precise movements. That's how Lena knew she was _really_ distressed. "The situation in South America has gotten even worse. Vishkar has straight up started pushing out people from their homes." She sighed uneasily. "No one focuses on what they're doing. No one _sees_ this. Everyone just sees…" She gestured vaguely at herself and Lena. "The media sees us and focuses on what seems to be the biggest threat. No one watches out for the people who really need help. Isn't that what we're supposed to be _doing_? Shouldn't we go help the people that Lúcio is so desperately trying to help?"

Lena didn't rightly have a good reply. On one hand, Talon's encroaching territory was exponentially expanding. On another hand, if _they_ didn't watch out for the little guy, who would?

Hana continued. "All Lúcio talks about anymore is Vishkar and that _bitch_ Symmetra."

Lena snorted. "What kind of name is that, anyway? Is she a maths teacher?"

Hana cracked an unwilling smile before moving on. "I asked him." She took a breath. "I asked him why he's so focused on her."

Lena quirked an eyebrow. "Do you think he's…?"

Hana shook her head. "I don't know." She paused. "Lena, I _miss_ him. I miss him being goofy and positive. I miss his support. I miss him being able to laugh with me. I miss…" She swallowed. "I miss not having every moment colored by doom and gloom."

She paced back over to the bed and sat on the corner closest to Lena. "I'm afraid he doesn't take me seriously because I'm not interested in... " She coughed and looked away. "I'm afraid he doesn't see me as grown enough to be in a relationship with him."

Lena sat up and shook her head. "No, love. There's no way. I know the way you talk to each other, and it'll be okay." She didn't know how much she believed her own words. Whether or not things would work out. But she wanted them to work out. Hana deserved that much.

"It feels like forever ago that he and I met, Lena. I was just at a post with the army, training and stuff, you know."

Lena had heard the story before, but she let Hana keep going. It seemed like she needed it.

"And there he was in the middle of the fray, rallying everyone." She shook her head. "I mean… I was there. I was in the middle of it all. I'd wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time, and Lúcio was there." She shrugged. "It's fuzzy, now. All I can think of is what's happening right now." Another pause. "I hate it."

"Hate what?" _Dumb question._

"I hate being so… I hate being so locked into this fight. Sometimes, I just want to sit back and just… watch the world turn, Lena."

"Watch the world turn, or watch the world burn?" Lena, who'd been too focused on a pulled loop in Hana's rug, looked up at Hana's face. She looked much older than she was, for a moment. "I get that, you know."

Hana frowned down at Lena who turned onto her side. Her chronal accelerator was getting too warm for comfort from her blocking one port by laying on her stomach.

"I broke into the Overwatch facility when I was fourteen years old."

Hana laughed. That was an encouraging sign. "Oh my god, I haven't heard this story before."

Lena smiled. "If my misfortune can bring you any joy, I'll take it."

Hana grinned, eyes sparkling with something other than tears. "Do tell."

Lena stretched and sat up. "Well, you see. I was a young lad. I thought I could do anything. My folks were on a trip, and we didn't stay too far from where the Aviation Base was, so being the strapping youngster that I was, I decided that breaking in and taking a look-see was a fantastic idea." She shrugged a sore shoulder. "They were these… legends. Legends should have fuck-off nice planes, yeah?"

Hana cackled. There was a genuine snort buried in there somewhere. It made Lena smile. It felt good to laugh and smile. It was so natural between them, and somewhere, Lena wondered how they ever didn't know each other.

"Anyway, I bust in and wander around for maybe five minutes, completely dumbstruck by all these massive crafts that these gods among mortals are operating. Then I hear a click." She paused, the happy memory turning sour. "Jesse was standing there behind me with a gun to my head. Nearly pissed myself."

Hana frowned. "First impressions."

Lena nodded a little too hard and winced. "Yeah. Angela saved my ass, even then."

"What about McCree?"

Lena blinked. "What _about_ him?"

"What did he do?"

Lena shrugged. "He did what he always does. He fought to put a bullet in my head but listened to Angela."

Hana nodded once. "Did it mess up your relationship when you joined?"

Lena gave a noncommital hand gesture. "Sorta. Mostly, I just avoided him. Eventually, Angela sat us both down and made us deal with each other."

Hana put a thoughtful finger to her lips. "Maybe you should sit down and talk out some things again. Clear the air."

Lena walked over to Hana's vintage game collection to peruse the selection. She didn't actually know what she was looking at, but she didn't want to answer Hana's suggestion.

It would probably be best to corner him and needle him until he talked, but that sounded as appealing as cleaning a litter box. She couldn't just buy a new McCree, though.

"I don't know what I would say to him. I mean, I don't rightly know why he saved me, Hana. It would have been safer for him to let Reaper pull the trigger and finish me off. It'd take care of Jesse's problem for him." She thumbed out a square, white, plastic case with a round pink blob with eyes sucking a star into its gaping maw. Looked cute. And terrifying. "He just… went for the gun Hana. He pretty much threw himself directly in front of Reaper's gun just to save me. He could have carried Angela when it was all over, but he carried me back instead. He… He talked to Widowmaker for me. For us."

Hana smiled. "Sounds like he was protecting his family."

Lena scoffed and put the case back. "You sound too sage and wise. Stuff it. Have you been chummy with Zenyatta too?"

Zenyatta blinked on, moving with a computer generated form similar to his own body, except with this one, he had waist length, shiny black hair. "I am online and have access to the video and voice panels! I heard my name."

Hana made a wordless choking sound before coughing Dorito dust.

"Oh my god, Zenyatta. You've gotta stop doing that, mate."

"Spying on my body's repairs was… unfulfilling." Amusement touched at his peaceful voice. "Joining your conversation sounded more interesting."

Hana recovered from her choking hazard. "Hey, Z-man. What do you think about our discussion?"

Zenyatta paused for a thoughtful moment, putting a metallic finger to his immobile chin. "I think that Lena should discuss her feelings with McCree."

Lena rolled her eyes. "You can stuff it too."

Hana laughed and so did Zenyatta. "Did you just tell a zen master guy to 'stuff it?'"

Lena gestured toward Zenyatta. "Come on, why are we ragging on me when we could slam him for his hippie hair?"

Hana snorted.

Zenyatta gave the best impression of a grumpy voice. "I think it makes me look rather dashing."

Hana put up her hands, palms up. "Calm down, Master Tom Petty."

"Who?" Lena didn't get the joke. Oftentimes, Lena didn't get the joke when it came to Hana.

Hana pulled out her phone and geared it toward the television. "Hold up a peace sign and say 'smoke weed every day.'"

Zenyatta did not seem amused and answered in a sober tone. "You know as well as I, Hana, that marijuana has been legal for decades. Your stoner memes have no power here. Honestly, Hana Song, jokes about that particular substance ceased being funny years ago."

Lena snorted. "Yeah. How old _are_ you?"

Hana pouted. "Hey! He's only a year older than I am."

"Yes, however, I was born fully formed. I have never had to endure the follies of childhood. I have been growing as an adult for all twenty of my years, while you have barely reached prime maturity." Zenyatta didn't make that sound as condescending as most would have; to him, it was a simple statement of fact.

Lena watched back and forth like a tennis match.

Hana shrugged. "For what it's worth, I never really had a childhood. I started off young doing what I do." Hana dragged a hand down her face in exasperation. She didn't like talking about her childhood. "That's the saddest thing I've ever heard get said, and _I_ said it!"

Lena laughed and tried to redirect the conversation before Hana got upset. Zenyatta probably didn't know what a touchy subject it was for her. With her parents retracting almost all of their support for her and how much she'd thrown herself into work, Lena knew that Hana resented it all, in a way. She'd made that very clear not so long ago in their conversation.

"I still don't know what I'm going to say to McCree. 'Hey, mate, we have a toxic relationship. You keep trying to shoot me and the people I love but you're family and you saved my life. Let's work it out?'" Her words came out as a question.

Zenyatta took a pause before nodding. "Yes, I think that would be a blunt starter."

"Blunt…" Hana snickered again.

Lena made a rude gesture to Hana, who laughed in turn. "I'll see what I can do about it."

* * *

Lena went out of Hana's room long enough after she fell asleep that she didn't have to worry about waking her. She bumped into Angela, whose hair was down and incredibly messy. That usually meant that she and Fareeha had broken in the welcome home wagon. Lena smiled a little.

Jack and McCree sat together on the awful maroon monstrosity. McCree's smile faded when Lena walked into the kitchen area. Jack shifted and took his arm from around Jesse's shoulders, pausing a minute before getting coffee and walking over to Lena, who stood in the doorway. She wasn't sure if she wanted to have this conversation now or later.

That was a lie. She definitely wanted to have it later. But she knew what the _right_ answer was.

"Morning, kid," Jack grunted. "You're up early."

Lena shrugged a shoulder and leaned a little more heavily on the doorway. Her leg was _definitely_ growing more sore. "Couldn't sleep. You doing okay, Jack? How's the face?"

Jack frowned. "I could use a tylenol."

For some reason, that simple answer made Lena laugh.

"Angela went ahead and pulled out another two pieces I missed. I'm kinda pissed, but it's better to get them out than leave them." He motioned his coffee hand to her leg. "How's that doin' you?"

Lena gave a noncommittal hand gesture. She didn't want to make an issue out of it. "I could use a tylenol."

Jack barked a rough laugh and slapped Lena genially on the shoulder. "Get yourself some food, kid."

Lena thought she might have said something else, but her stomach became tight at the thought of talking to McCree. She wandered into the kitchen, trying to look natural.

"What's got you tighter than a corkscrew, Oxton?"

She all but heard the tires squalling with a horrible crash in her mind. She spun around and put a hand on the island to keep her from tipping over. A fuzzy thought crossed her mind. Lena Tipping. Like cow tipping. But Lena. She almost laughed.

Wow, she needed rest.

"Oh. You know." She gestured with her free hand. "I just keep wondering why you're itching so bad to put a bullet in me and everyone I love."

 _Oh. My god._

She didn't intend to come right on out with it, but there it was. Damn, this was starting to become a habit. On another hand, she'd always said exactly what was on her mind. Now, she just started saying _everything_ that was on her mind.

McCree laughed genuinely. "I always did love a lady who said what she meant."

Lena rolled her eyes and blew a strand of hair from her face. "Avoiding the question, love."

McCree shrugged. "Getting down to brass tacks, are we?"

Lena looked to the kitchen doorway. "Yeah, we can't have Angela intervening every time, now can we?"

McCree nodded. "Fair enough."

"So, why do you keep doing what you do? Why'd you stop Reaper? Why were you nice to her? Why'd you pull a gun on me when I was a kid? Why don't you _like_ me?"

That's what it really came down to, wasn't it? Lena couldn't stand for someone to be indifferent about her. She knew where Reaper stood. He wanted to kill her. She knew where Angela stood. Angela liked Lena even when she was angry at Lena. Where did McCree stand? Why didn't he pick a side? He'd always had so much distaste for her, but he sided with her in conflict. He could have just let her die so many times.

Jesse frowned and took a sip of coffee before standing. He usually towered over Lena, but he leaned across the kitchen's island with a genuine look. He looked like a puppy that just got kicked by accident. Lena almost felt bad, but she wouldn't back down. Not this time.

"It's not that I don't like you, kid. I just don't like the company you keep." He sighed and scratched at his neck. "When you were… younger, I was too, so don't forget that. I didn't make the right call that night, I'll admit. I thought you were just a punk ass kid who broke in to say you did it. Now, I see that you were just… damn passionate. You wanted in on it, and I resented you then. That you had a _choice._ " He looked down. "That's why I was angry when you joined. You didn't have to and you did anyway."

Lena didn't rightly know what to say, so naturally, she went and said the wrong thing. "You had a choice." She regretted it instantly.

McCree's eyes darkened and sparkled in that menacing light. He laughed humorlessly. "I didn't feel like dying in a prison cell was an option, Lena. I wanted to live." He shrugged his shoulder, and Lena couldn't help but notice that Angela still hadn't replaced his prosthetic yet. His arm just ended between the shoulder and the elbow. "You know where I come from. You know how they recruited me. I don't need to tell you the kind of dark shit I was doin' with the Deadeyes, the kind of person I was. Before I got myself caught, you'd have walked into our hideout like that, not a single person there wouldn't have shot you dead for it. That's the kind of people I grew up with." He grunted and sipped his coffee. "I never chose to be a criminal, Lena. I never had a moment where I could have backed down. I was in over my head, and all I could keep doing was moving forward. Right into a jail cell."

Lena frowned. "But what's that got to do with-"

"You keep throwing yourself directly in front of death, and I don't get it, Oxton. You have everything ahead of you, and you keep running in front of a speeding train."

Lena blinked several times. "Does it seem that way?"

"I've never seen anyone play Russian Roulette as willingly as you, kid." Jesse nodded. "You're family to me, kid. An irritating niece maybe, but you're still family. I'm worried about you. You're throwing your life away."

Lena frowned. She couldn't rightly just snap off on him. He had a point. From his perspective, it looked like just a useless, fruitless endeavor. He didn't see all the progress with Widowmaker. Hell. _No one_ saw the progress. Then again, she hadn't been open enough to let them see.

"Jesse, I'm tired of fighting you."

Jesse went around the kitchen island and threw his good arm around Lena. He gave her a small squeeze. "I've never tried to fight _you_ , Lena." He paused. "Except that one time."

Hesitantly, perhaps, Lena wrapped her arm around Jesse's waist in a gentle squeeze. Things didn't feel completely fixed between them, but this was a step in the right direction.

"Let me try to help you understand." Jesse looked thoughtful. "Back when I was a Deadeye, I had this girlfriend, see? I was in love with her, or at least, I thought I was."

Lena opened her mouth to protest, but McCree nudged her with his stump.

"Lemme say my piece. I've been thinkin' a lot about this." He seemed to be choosing his words carefully. McCree wasn't much of a talker - this must really be coming from somewhere genuine. "This girl. Her name was Ellie. I wanted to spend all my time with her, get down and dirty with her, you know the drill." He set the coffee mug down and winked. "But this girl, see, she was part of this rival gang. Knew it at the time, but I thought our love would unite us, or some damn thing. You know, that whole Romeo and Juliet complex kids get." He raised his hand. "Now I know you don't want to make good with Talon, but is this sounding at all familiar?"

Lena nodded, grudgingly. She didn't like where this was going.

"Now, my friends, see, they were skeptical. 'Jesse, they said, this girl is playing you for a fool. And not only that, she's dangerous. She could be a spy.' I thought that was ridiculous, of course. I trusted Ellie. I thought our love was real.

"But Ellie, see, she had other ideas. Turns out, she did care about me. Offered to run away with me. Elope somewhere far away. Thing is, she said that with a smoking gun in her hand, having just killed three of my best friends. She had a stroke of conscience or somesuch, regretted turning on us. But not before she'd murdered people I cared about and used me for information."

"What did you do?" Lena asked, but she was fairly sure she already knew the answer.

McCree was silent for a very long moment. He looked down, into his coffee mug, as if there might be answers there. "When the cops found me on my knees, screaming, there were four bodies. Not three."

Lena didn't know what to say. "I'm sorry, Jesse." She hesitated, then reached out to touch his arm. He flinched away, and she took a nervous step back. "That's… an awful story. I'm so sorry you had to go through that."

Jesse shrugged. "It's what led to me being here, right now, talking to you." His voice was wooden. Uninflected. "I've never been the trusting sort, Oxton. You people, you're the only ones I do trust. And I don't want to lose any of you because I let someone dangerous in again." He took a heavy seat on the couch, his hat down low over his eyes. "And when I see you and the Widowmaker… I smell the gunpowder. Hear the crying all over again. She's a weapon."

God…

How could she argue with something like that?

Instead, she quietly took a seat beside Jesse and leaned over, resting her head on the large man's shoulder. "Would you like to hear about Amélie?" She asked, so quietly it was almost a whisper.

Jesse shrugged. "If you'd like."

Lena closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Amélie was… my best friend. And I was in love with her from the moment her husband introduced us." She laughed to herself, remembering how good Amélie had smelled in their first hug. So long ago. "I didn't realize it at the time, but damn, there it was. She was so sweet and beautiful, Jesse. I think even you wouldn't have been able to resist that smile of hers…" Lena smiled sadly. "I remember this one time, just a couple weeks after we first met, she told me…"

Lena talked and talked, telling story after story about their friendship, their bond. She talked about what it was like when Talon took her, talked about what she could see when she looked into Widowmaker's eyes. About how the woman had changed, even in the short time they'd been together in Florence.

Lena talked about love until exhaustion finally caught up with her, and she trailed off into thankfully dreamless sleep.


	20. Get Hurt

She was exhausted.

She didn't even know what day it was.

She looked down again at the puddle of mush in front of her, took a deep breath through her nose, and scarfed it down as quickly as possible, trying to ignore the repulsive texture as it crawled down her throat like a drunken slug. She tried not to wince.

Somewhere, she knew that Reaper's eyes were trained on her, watching her every move - every reaction. He was waiting for her to make a mistake. Any misjudgment would be her demise.

She rose from her cold steel chair, the rubber stoppers scraping along the concrete floor, and took her tray promptly to the tray receptacle.

A Talon grunt bumped into her, and she stared down at him, her eyes hard and unreadable. She felt her lips turn into a snarl of disgust.

He looked up at her with wide, horrified eyes and a face red enough to be easily mistaken for a large tomato. Jeering from somewhere behind her met her ears. She did not move.

"My apologies, ma'am." He nodded his head in acknowledgement, regaining some of his composure.

He didn't look old enough to have seen a woman naked in person before.

Widowmaker said nothing, simply staring down at the young man.

Her eyes drifted to the embroidered patch on his arm.

Reaper's.

A thought crossed her mind, but her expression did not change from mild disgust.

 _Were there more of them than usual?_

She waited, holding the young man's stare until he retreated. He wouldn't make it off this floor alive with that show of cowardice. She took a quick look around the room, noting that the majority of people in the cafeteria either had white masks on their arms or blue wings.

The aviation unit.

Only three groups at a time could be in the cafeteria.

Reaper's soldiers still outnumbered the aviation unit, which was not necessarily unheard of since his branch mostly consisted of footsoldiers, but the aviation unit seemed larger than usual. Her eyes tracked around, ignoring how many of the simpletons oogled at her as if she were some circus animal.

Less than a quarter of the people in the room had red rifles on their arms - the marksmen. That number had significantly decreased since she'd last been there.

Something deep in her bones told her that she'd been standing there too long, and that someone was sure to notice her interest. She walked off down the hall to the elevator, padding around on her bare feet. She tried to block out the cold by building mental walls around her brain.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled for a second before a presence loomed over her shoulder. She did not turn.

Reyes.

A misty hand swiped a keycard down the card reader, and the doors slid open without so much as a thump.

She walked in without looking behind her until she was solidly in the elevator. The presence followed her turned back, and felt-like fingers trailed down her spine. She steeled her gaze on the door.

"Widowmaker, you are less responsive than usual."

A statement of fact.

"I am functional."

 _Are you just telling yourself that?_

The confidence she'd built in herself the last few weeks took a battering ram dead and center.

Reaper laughed as the elevator stopped on her floor. He shoved her out of the elevator with the hand that had rested on her lower back. She nearly fell but caught herself in a spin that brought back too many feelings to count or stoically bear.

Widowmaker winced.

Reaper's eyes narrowed considerably. " _Are_ you functional, my Widowmaker?" The words sounded harder than before, less ingratiating - less confident and more accusatory.

"Oui," she replied simply, fighting to sink her feelings into a mental ice bath.

Reaper nodded and looked down at Widowmaker's leg. "Ah, there's the problem."

She'd almost forgotten about the steady throbbing in her leg from whatever puncture had laid a hole in her.

"You're bleeding. You need stitches. Go to your chambers." He tossed her the keycard, which she caught one handed. "Shower. You smell revolting."

Silently, she departed from the looming man. He vanished into thin air.

He only did his little vanishing act when he wanted to intimidate people. It only annoyed Widowmaker.

It always had.

 _The defects began early_ , whispered her mind as she swiped the keycard. The little green light blinked on with a happy little plink along with it.

She entered and dropped her shoulders.

They would be watching her every move. She couldn't cry like she so desperately craved. She couldn't allow the grief to settle onto her shoulders. She had to be Widowmaker here.

They were watching everywhere.

He was watching.

 _If you just turn back to them and let them help you…_

She went for the shower and waited for the water to warm. She could risk that much, right? They wouldn't care if she let her water warm up, right?

Hot showers in Florence were a luxury she didn't realize she enjoyed until then.

But…

The water never got any warmer.

They'd cut the hot water to her room.

She climbed in anyway, wishing to exfoliate her skin - to scrub off any trace of anyone else on her skin. She couldn't feel the warmth of Lena's skin anymore. She couldn't feel the aftereffects of their kiss. The only thing she could feel in that frigid shower was the weight of utter loneliness.

And the cold.

She could feel the cold water slapping against her skin like hailstones.

She reached for her shampoo, a small luxury for herself, and realized with sinking horror that it had been replaced by standard issue shampoo along with standard issue soap. She couldn't hold it in anymore.

The tears bubbled up and spilled over in an instant, lost in the freezing water coming from overhead. She showered there, crying - some sense of relief washing over her with every bout of silent sobs.

The door that led directly into her room hissed shut, and her sobs ceased as if she'd turned off water from a faucet. For a brief moment, she was grateful for the cold water keeping her face from becoming puffy from tears. The redness in her eyes, however, would remain.

The tension relieved by crying crept back into her shoulders as she left the confines of her poorly concealed shower.

Reaper stood there with a medic who looked grizzled and worn. He held a black bag in his right hand.

A few minutes later, the medic barked out a few harsh words to Reaper and called in a bedsheet and a comforter. No pillow, though.

"I'm saying this as a doctor, Reaper. This Widowmaker unit is beyond exhaustion. It is _imperative_ that it recover from… whatever the hell you've been doing to it. If you keep running it at this pace, it'll meet its date without much notice. Hell, it looks like it's about ready to shut down at any damn _moment_."

Reaper's hard voice sounded like gravel grinding together. "I don't tell _you_ how to take care of _your_ tools, doc."

The doctor waved a dismissive hand at Reaper, and Widowmaker, through the haze of the drugs injected directly into her veins, wondered how he was still alive from such insolence.

"I'll remind you of who is next in line, _Abernathy_." Reaper growled.

"And I'll remind you of who is best in this goddamn facility for medical care. I don't give a damn what threats you hurl at me, Reaper. I'm trying to save you the only Widowmaker that isn't obviously compromised. With you taking them out left and right with your insane assassinations, we only have two left, and they're cracking under the pressure. They're deteriorating."

That piqued her hazy interest. She'd known there were more, but were they…

She lost her trail of thought, and her eyelids became heavy. Something pulled at her leg.

The doctor - Abernathy - laughed at something. Widowmaker lost track of what they were talking about despite every fiber of her being screaming that the conversation was important.

She was already so tired…

* * *

When slumber rolled over her, she wasn't sure whether or not she was dreaming. The darkness. That cloying darkness. She felt restrained, but only by her own fatigue rather than be physical restraints. For that long moment, she was certain that they'd thrown her back in The Pit, and now she floundered around in her drugged semi-consciousness, clawing at nothing but close, featureless walls.

But.

The walls of her prison weren't featureless. Her roaming, desperate hands ran over what felt like a light switch - room temperature, rigid plastic protruding a quarter of an inch from the wall surrounded by softer plastic.

She switched the tab upward and warm yellow light from incandescent bulbs lit a small but functional room. In the center, a round, oak table - deeply but not unsettlingly familiar - housed four chairs, two of which were occupied by equally familiar individuals.

A shock of brown hair hung in loose curls around the man's head. His hair was longer than he had kept it in the more recent years. His green eyes turned to her and seemed to pierce her heart with more accuracy than any sniper could manage. His lips, dainty for such a strong featured face, parted in a wide smile that shone pearly white teeth. She noticed her jaw clench in the way it did when he was exceptionally happy. He stood wordlessly and pulled out one of the unoccupied chairs from the table and gestured to it with his broad, strong hands. His skin might have been a shade paler than she ever remembered, but even in death, Gérard Lacroix was breathtaking.

He reached out a hand and she took it a few steps later. She couldn't help but notice the brown of her own skin and looked to her forearm.

No tattoo.

Instead, she wore a dainty silver bracelet with no other adornment. Gérard had given it to her after their fifth year of marriage.

Part of her started remembering that evening, but another part cut her thoughts off as the other person turned from her seat facing away from where she'd been standing.

Large brown eyes met her own for only a half a second before a bell chime giggle rose up from the girl's lips. "Hiya, Amélie. Glad you could join us, love." She clapped a hand over her mouth and a faint pink settled on her freckled cheeks. "Oh, right. I forgot to do the thing." She cleared her throat and waggled her fingers around both sides of her face. "OoOOooOo," she said in what Amélie presumed to be a "spooky" voice. "I'm your _subconscious."_

Amélie felt herself smile. How very like Lena…

Still holding Gérard's hand, she sat at the table. His skin was so… warm.

She felt cold.

"What is this place?" She felt herself ask.

Gérard blinked. "You tell us, darling. It's _your_ head after all."

Amélie frowned, and Lena responded quickly. "What he means to say is that you're dreaming, but you're kinda talking to your subconscious." She waved a hand again. "That's me." A pause. "And him."

Amélie continued frowning and noticed a shape out of the corner of her eye - not a shape, exactly, but there was an individual that she'd seen in more than one windowpane. Tall, stoic, and calculating, the unnaturally blue version of herself stood just out of direct line of sight.

"What about that?"

 _That? That's still you._

Lena waved a hand. "You know what that is just as well as we do."

Gérard squeezed Amélie's hand reassuringly. "We'll talk about her later. Right now, I think you have questions."

Fatigue rolled over Amélie once more, as if she were perfectly awake and _not_ surrounded by split portions of her own mind. Didn't people usually just have one subconscious and not three? Wait, no. Four, if she counted herself.

 _Even better._

"Why are you here?" Her voice sounded small even to her own ears.

Lena, with her feet tucked up under her legs on the chair, leaned forward and took Amélie's other hand. Her skin was as soft as Gérard's was warm. It felt so _real_. "You need help, love. We're gonna do our best to help you figure it out."

Amélie barked a short, sarcastic laugh and heard the figure in her peripheral vision chuckle mirthlessly. It sent a shiver down her spine. "I don't even know what I need help with, chérie."

Lena bobbed her head noncommittally. "Well, that's what we're here for."

Gérard leaned in, and Amélie could smell the light aftereffects of his cologne still on his collar. "There's a lot going down, and you see it all from the inside. You see _Talon_ from the inside, which was more than I could ever do."

Unease crept back into Amélie's stomach, remembering what Reaper and the doctor had been discussing when she'd, presumably, fallen asleep. "Are you talking about what Abernathy said to Reyes?"

Gérard nodded.

Lena piped up, squeezing Amélie's right hand. "Didn't you think it a bit odd when there was no one around in the bottom floor's halls?"

Gérard tilted his head, much in the way he did when he was thinking about phrasing something properly. "Or when the cafeteria had only a few sects in it."

"Those sectors were completely… wrong. The numbers were wrong," Amélie agreed.

A rough voice rolled like thunder overhead in the empty space that had just been the ceiling. _Times are changing…_ It wasn't so much something she heard rather than she felt in every fiber of her being - every molecule bounced around the the sheer volume and presence of those three horrible words. It was Reyes's voice.

Reyes.

"Reyes is pulling something off," Amélie whispered more to herself than her company.

Lena made a scoffing snort. "Yeah, _and_ …"

Gérard smiled over at Lena. "Come on, kid. You know she's working on putting it together."

Sudden frustration seized Amélie's heart and threw her for a loop. It was mind boggling to feel that intensity still. She saw Widowmaker shift in the corner of her vision. "Why can't you just _tell_ me?" The demand was nearly a plea.

Lena's face, grinning her mischevious grin, changed to a look of concern and sympathy. "We only know what you know."

Familiar frustration surged again, but this time, it wasn't geared toward anyone. It was just… frustration. She didn't have a target. She didn't have an objective. Something about aimless feeling was… liberating.

She spent a second revelling in her aimless, joyful frustration.

Almost tangibly, she felt pieces of the infuriating puzzle clicking together.

The teams. The allies. The doctor's words. The blatant rejection of Talon's practices.

The blatant rejection of Talon.

Rejection.

Revelation.

 _Revolution_.

Amélie's eyes went wide. A chill made the hairs of her whole body stand on end. The sinking revelation turned into a sinking stone in her stomach that threatened to make her sick. "Reyes is starting a _revolution_."

Lena pulled back her hand and started clapping. "Ding, ding, ding! And here we have it, folks! We have a _winner_!"

Amélie couldn't help but let a giggle escape despite the pit in her stomach. That pit had started feeling so constant and eternal that she might as well be a plum - mere flesh surrounding that awful, awful ball of concrete. Part of her wondered if the giggles deterred the pit from taking root and sprouting into something even worse.

The giggles died out quickly as the severe form in the corner of her eye shifted into full view. Up until now, she'd been like one of those paintings whose eyes followed you no matter where you went.

Now, though, she seemed to move of her own volition instead of like she was tethered by an invisible fishing line to the corner of Amélie's sight.

Her eyes were cold - dead - seemingly unseeing, but Amélie knew the truth of that facade. Those eyes were calculating. Her out of focus eyes were belying the truth of her heart. Those reflexes of that corpselike woman were as lethal as her will.

She felt Gérard squeeze her hand reassuringly, but there seemed less tangible pressure there than before. She began to look over to her left side to see him, but the lights cut out, sinking Amélie back into blackness.

" _We'll get to her later."_

The cloying heat covered her again, suffocating her through its thick blanket that covered her nose and mouth. Seven red dots came to life, gleaming ominously through the darkness. The glint of metal shining blood red in the light's wake.

" _Personne n'échappe à notre regarde."_

Amélie's ear caught the words as the undercurrent of a much louder sound. A deafening crack of crumbling silence. That's when the pain hit.

Maybe the pain hit first.

When she thought back to it, she could no longer tell whether the chicken or the egg came first in that incident.

She plunged through the floor as if someone had pulled it out from under her, her chest aching - surely a bullet had torn through her heart.

Her heart.

Oh, god, her heart.

It beat too fast.

Too hard.

It _hurt_.

The rapid beep beep beep of a heart monitor filled her ears and the walls of her prison cell became screens.

The voice - that terrible, cold voice - filled the room as if coming from a thousand rattling speakers riddled with feedback. Freezing water stood placidly over both of her feet.

 **YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BOW TO THE WILL OF THOSE TRAITORS**

Amélie's chest pounded and reverberated with every piercingly frigid word. The waters rose slightly.

 **TALON WILL RESCUE YOU**

Another few pangs tore through.

The hypothermia would set in. The water climbed up her leg steadily.

 **GIVE UP THIS CHILDISH PURSUIT**

Those heinous waters in her mind reached neck level.

The voice continued berating her.

The sound became one cold note hammering at her head. She felt the rising waters fill her mouth and nose, trickling into her lungs.

She tried to speak through the waters, but only felt herself growing heavier.

 _No._

The waters receded a fraction of a centimeter.

 _This is_ _ **my**_ _choice._

The waters pulled themselves from her lungs.

"You cannot take this from me." Her voice held strong, even in her terror. One hand gripped her aching chest. "Whatever I do, it will be _my_ choice."

The cold room began to spin, or at least, Amélie's head felt as if the room were spinning. In a blink, she found herself swaying back at the table, one hand steadying herself on the chair back.

Widowmaker sat across from her with a cold smile.

There was nothing warm about this part of her mind. She was every calculated move. She was the embodiment of her logical resolve.

But there was more to her than just logic driven survival, right?

Talon may have programmed her to be that way but…

She was more than just her programming.

"Sit, child. If you insist on being difficult, I will explain this to you in a way that you can understand." The monotone voice held nothing but contempt.

Amélie sat, not knowing what else to do but humor Widowmaker.

Humor herself?

Now wasn't the time to psychoanalyze herself.

She folded her hands on the table, unsure of what to do with them besides bite her nails. She shouldn't show weakness to this monster.

A humorless quirk of Widowmaker's lips caused the hairs on Amélie's arm to reach for the sky. "Monster, I might be, but that makes you just as accountable."

"Accountable?" The word slipped out without her necessarily willing it.

Widowmaker's eyes narrowed. "Do not waste my time. Time is of the essence."

Amélie lowered her eyes, cowed.

"This." Widowmaker pointed accusingly at Amélie. "This is _weakness_. This is _defective_. Talon did not make you to be _defective_."

"I'm not 'defective,'" Amélie shot back, she hoped angrily, but it came out as a fearful squeak. "I'm just a person."

Widowmaker did not raise her voice, nor did she change her neutral expression. "You are a tool crafted by Talon. Talon does not make mistakes."

Memories of Gérard walking around cities, telling grand stories of his adventures, hit Amélie full force. He'd told her so much about Talon yet nothing at all.

"Talon gave you the gift of _clarity_ , you foolish child." Widowmaker spread her thin, bony fingers on the table. "You are not meant to ask questions. You are not meant to go gallivanting off with that _thing_ you call your friend. You know as well as I that she would abandon you without hesitation if it came to making a choice between her precious Overwatch and _you_." She cracked her neck both directions. "She's a fickle thing."

"You don't know _anything_ about me," Amélie retorted. A fire in her chest kindled and began to rage.

The lights cut off again. A low chuckle seemed to come from everywhere all at once. "Don't I?"

Above their head, an unseen film projector crackled to life with a quiet _thump,_ filling the room with a disconcerting clicking.

A familiar image.

An image she never wanted to see again.

Amélie stood, her naked body covered in blood, her arms dangling loosely at her sides. A dripping knife was held in one hand, a torn mass of flesh that used to be her husband at her feet. Her face was hellishly blank.

Emotionless.

Not even cold.

Asleep on her feet.

In the darkened room, Amélie's eyes widened, and she shook her head. "No. No, that's not _me._ That's what Talon did to me. That's what Talon made me!"

On the screen, the still image lurched into movement. At first, Amélie simply swayed from side to side like a sleepwalker, blood drip-drip-dripping from the knife, but then her eyes slowly widened. Tears ran down her face, cuffing streaks through the blood, but otherwise, she remained the same.

The other Widowmaker drummed her fingers on the table with a smile. "Amélie, my dear, you have no idea. This is who you think you are." She snapped her fingers. "Show her."

The image blurred, playing in reverse, too fast to see the action.

"Please don't," the real Amélie asked.

Widowmaker didn't respond.

On the screen, Amélie stood over her husband yet again - but he was sleeping, not dead.

Not yet.

In a trance, she lifted the knife in both hands, like one performing a sacrifice to the gods, poised to strike.

Gerárd's eyes fluttered open. "My dear…? Are you-"

She brought down the knife. He let out a quiet _whuff_ of air as it sheared down into his body, cutting through the soft flesh of his stomach. She twisted, and things that were meant to be kept inside saw air for the first time.

"No!" The Amélie at the table screamed. Widowmaker didn't move.

They both froze on the screen, Amélie with the knife, Gerárd barely breathing. Blood was the only thing moving.

A horrific tableau.

Finally, Gerárd seemed to realize what was happening to him, if not why, and his wrists were on hers, but even from here in the future, Amélie could see how weak his grip already was. He was in shock, and he'd been awoken from a dead sleep.

He made a choking sound. Blood spattered from his mouth, speckling past-Amélie's face. Finally she moved, pulling the knife from her husband's body with a horrible sucking noise - then brought it down again.

Gerárd did the only thing he could - he tried to grab the blade before it could pierce his heart. He deflected the knife, but at the cost of a long, pouring gash on his palm and wrist. He tried to struggle to a sitting position, not quite noticing the state of his guts, and screamed. It was an undignified sound. Not at all what you'd expect from the poster boy of an organization like Overwatch.

Amélie stabbed again, and again, the knife _chunk_ ing off of and sliding between ribs, but she was not the master of anatomy she would become. She didn't hit the heart.

Maybe in retrospect, maybe she couldn't bring herself to do it.

Finally, far too late to do anything about it, Gerárd realized what was going on.

"Amélie…?" His voice was barely a whisper.

Future-Amélie had her head in her hands, but she could still hear everything, could remember every horrific detail. The way the knife had felt in her grasp. The way the hot blood had felt on her arms and face. The _joy_ of causing pain and death.

Her face was trance-like, but inside, she was _alive._

Trance-Amélie hesitated, for the briefest of moments. Something flickered in her eyes, and Gerárd had hope on his face.

He was too weak now to lift his arms, but she kept stabbing and stabbing and stabbing.

Blood.

Blood.

Blood.

She could see bone in half a dozen places.

His lungs were torn to shreds. He couldn't speak. All he could do was mouth three words.

I.

Love.

You.

Amélie screamed, and the knife came down one last time, plowing through his left eye and into his brain, hard enough to shatter skull.

He went absolutely limp.

" _No!"_ Amélie, the real Amélie, screamed.

The image froze on her vacant, bloodied face.

"This is what you are, Amélie," Widowmaker purred. "This is where it began. Imperfect, unformed, but the beginning of something truly wonderful. A diamond in the rough."

Amélie shook her head. Her vision wavered, the tears coming unbidden to her eyes. "What if this isn't what I want to be? What if I don't want to be perfect?" Her voice was so, so small.

Widowmaker laughed. "Are you under the impression that it matters what you want, my darling?"

 _thump._

 _thump._

 _thump._

Three more projectors crashed to life overhead. The other three blank walls were filled with the same image of murderer-Amélie's trancelike face.

"This is what you are."

 _thump._

One more, pointing directly down. Even the table itself became a screen.

Amélie trembled. "This isn't happening. This is a dream and I don't have to see what you're showing me. I can wake up."

"Then wake. Wake, if you can."

Amélie tried. God, she tried. Even the cold walls of her room at Talon were preferable to… to _this._

The images began to rewind again.

 _Oh, no._

The screen in front of her began to play.

A second later, the one on her left began. The one on her right. The one behind her. The one on the table.

They were all slightly out of sync, the loud _clickclickclick_ s of the projectors filling the room. There was so much dark light, so much flickering. One moment, darkness. The next, they were both bathed in light.

 _Flick flick flick._

Then the stabbing began, and a discordant cacophony filled the room, the sounds of the knife entering and leaving his body and chipping bone filling the room. Amélie covered her ears but she could still _hear_ it oh god the sounds were like horrible mosquitos burrowing into her ears and everywhere she looked was blood and death and guilt _Gérard my love my sweet sweet love what did I do to you what did they make me do what did I become_

Gérard screamed five times, the agonized ululating overlapping and twisting together to form something somehow even worse than the sum of their parts, and Amélie was screaming too, her eyes closed, and it was all she could do to keep herself from digging her fingers into her ears until blood ran and things broke and she would never have to hear her beloved hurt like this again she would never hear anything again

 _this is a dream_

But it didn't matter, the sensory overload was too much. The guilt was too much and too real. What had she done?

"i love you"

 _no_

" _i love you"_

" _i love you"_

" _i love you"_

 _Amélie…_

" _i love you…"_

" _Gérard!"_ She was screaming the words, and she was only half conscious of what she was saying. " _Gérard, I'm so sorry!_ _ **Gérard!"**_

Five times, the knife ruined his eye and skull bone splintered.

On all five screens, Amélie stared down at what she had done.

Then, five times, five different ways, each Amélie began to laugh.

The real Amélie shut her eyes tight, hands still pressed hard against her ears.

 _thump_

 _thump_

And with that, two more projectors started up. In an impossibility that could only exist in the most fractured, hellish of fever dreams, the hysterically laughing, sobbing murderer was projected onto the insides of her eyelids.

There was no escape.

The smell of blood filled the room, and Amélie's eyes flew open. The Widowmaker was gone, and her own hands were that familiar shade of blue.

She couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Panic and pain stabbed into her heart and she was hyperventilating and

 _THUMP._

Total darkness.

Total silence.

She felt her lips move, but it wasn't her who spoke.

"This is who you are."

The lights flickered back on again, the warm glow of the incandescent bulbs lost in a flickering, fluorescent glare.

Two identical envelopes sat on the table in front of her folded hands.

Two paths she could take from here.

She reached her hand out.

A jolt of fear coursed through Amélie Lacroix, the body jerking up not feeling quite like her own. There was a masked face leaning down toward her. Her first instinct told her to cringe away from the frightening man. A nearly simultaneous one told her to stand her ground.

She felt cold, clammy hands clawing at her mind, threatening to pull her under the waters again. She wanted it. She knew it could help her.

But…

She knew it could rule her.

"Good to see you awake and functioning, my Widowmaker." Gabriel Reyes straightened and removed his mask, skin rippling like heat waves over concrete.

There was a glint to his eyes that she had not seen before.

She might have wondered about it more if she hadn't been suffering an identity crisis yet again. Was she Amélie or Widowmaker?

 _Both._

Slowly, it dawned on her, but the revelation was not comforting, just as seeing Lena and Gérard in her dream had not exactly been comforting.

She was both. She could be both. She _had_ to be both Amélie and the creature called Widowmaker. It... might be essential to her survival to continue being both.

"I have a mission for you." Reyes threw a folder harshly down on her body, covered by only a blanket. "You'll find a new suit in your closet." He turned to go but paused at the door. "It's a shame that this must be done, but take your time. I want this to be a… solo mission. " The door slid open smoothly. "Ah, one more thing. I trust you, my Widowmaker. I trust only you."

The hulking monster disguised as man left without another word, silently - as if nothing of his body made a single sound. She still felt the mechanical stare of the eye in the corner - the surveillance camera that watched her every move. She, again, wondered if there was one in the bathroom that she didn't know about. She wouldn't put it past her captors.

A sinking feeling attacked her stomach while familiar elation at a target wrenched her heart. Her fingers brushed the cold, brass tab and flipped the top open. The crinkling of the thick paper seemed deafening in the otherwise quiet room.

With shaky fingers, she withdrew the large folder from within the envelope (the folder was just so… _big_ ), her eyes going wide at the name printed across the front in large, neat letters.

 **LENA E. OXTON**

She vaguely noticed the clatter of a plastic pen that collided with the floor.

Amélie thought back to the folders in her dream.

She could take the path of cold calculation until Talon was done with her - the easiest choice and the one she wanted to take the most, in all honesty. She wanted to be forgiven of all her sins against them, but…

But this was too far.

That was the one person she could never go against.

That was her _friend_.

Widowmaker - Amélie Lacroix made her choice.


	21. Nothing Personal

Lena rapped on the door to Hana's room with a wide grin.

Friday night.

Friday night was vintage game night at the Drachten HQ.

At this point, it had become much more than Lena and Hana just yelling at screens together and talking shit to one another.

Genji had joined at some point, without either Hana or Lena remembering exactly how that happened, but neither of them minded. He gave Hana a run for her money on older games.

Zenyatta would float peacefully in the corner and point at certain things, asking questions. Once, they all had tried to get him involved in a Friday Mario Kart session, but he played too nice to do much damage, so they wanted to claim. In actuality, none of them could stand the fact that he avoided every trap, shell, powerup, and pitfall and _still_ managed to win. They were all baffled, amused, and playfully annoyed.

He said that that one win was enough to last him lifetimes in satisfaction.

Jesse was joining them tonight, saying he could do just as much damage as anyone else, but the last time he played, he ended up sulking most of the night because of his eight game losing streak. Lena had laughed then.

Things were coming along well with Jesse, she thought. They still had tense moments and times where they could be at one another's' throats, but nothing near like before their Come-To-Jesus Meeting. Lena thought that maybe they would be okay in the long run.

Sometimes he asked her about Amélie and about Widowmaker.

Those times were uncomfortable, at first, but she realized that he was at least trying to _understand_.

Hana opened the door with a wide grin and a blazing fire in her eyes. "I think we're gonna need more room, sis."

Lena blinked, the smile on her own face growing even wider. "Whacha mean?"

Hana threw the door open hard enough to bounce off the little spring meant to keep the doorknob from jamming into the sheetrock.

Angela, Jesse, Jack, Genji, Zenyatta… Lena looked around Hana's room. Everyone was there. _Everyone_.

"Bloody hell, do we even have a space big enough for everyone? Winston, too?"

Hana's grin grew even wider in its Cheshire cat goodness. "He's setting us up downstairs, and I'm bringing a ton of games for everyone."

"But what about _snacks_?" Lena protested.

Hana laughed. "BYOS. Bring ya own damn snacks." She winked and yelled, "Race you downstairs! Last one down has to take me on, one-on-one!"

There was a scrambling noise as several adults and one gorilla started for the door, but Hana was already on her way down the hall.

Lena couldn't help herself but laugh. The humming coming from her chest didn't sound like a threatening mosquito in her ear, ready to suck her life force into oblivion. It felt like it was laughing along with her.

Zenyatta hung back while everyone else crammed themselves through the doorway and drifted to Lena with a pleasant vibe exuding from his shiny body. The light glinted off his blindingly bald head. She was glad to have him back, but there would never be a moment where she wouldn't give him a ration of shit for his terrible CGI hair he took on while sharing Athena's systems.

"Hey, Zed, do you _wanna_ challenge Hana because you're gonna be last." She winked. "I can be over there in a…" She winked again, more dramatically. "Blink."

Zenyatta chuckled sweetly. "No, friend. I do not wish to challenge Hana Song, but I do not feel as though we have had time to… catch up, as you say."

Lena nodded. "Well, we can't rightly skip out on game night, but we can chat downstairs, if you like!"

Zenyatta tilted his head.

With their resources being less strained in Drachten, it had only taken Angela a few long days and nights to restore Zenyatta to his corporeal form. He was more silent than he had been when sharing the systems. Maybe he'd always been that quiet, but Lena thought there might be something else to it. She didn't pry.

"Lena Oxton, in the last…" He tiled his head the other direction. "The few weeks have held many adventures in self reflection." He turned to watch the last two people - Jesse and Fareeha - shove each other around in the closet space leading to the downstairs. "I have discussed this with most parties, but you always seem to be avoiding one-on-one interaction." He paused thoughtfully. "You avoid deep personal discussion with all but Hana." He rested a hand on her shoulder. "I would like to talk with you, now that my body is once more back in order. I think that I, too, would benefit from a conversation."

Lena smiled halfheartedly. She kinda _had_ been avoiding getting stranded with any one person, in case they wanted to talk about Widowmaker. Especially her time alone with Widowmaker. She deeply worried that they might ask about things she couldn't discuss without ratting herself out about some of their time alone.

A warm memory enveloped her temporarily of Widowmaker - no, Amélie - leaning over her body, pressing against her and kissing her.

It had been like a dream.

Hana understood, then, when Lena talked about it with her.

There was hope.

Maybe Zenyatta would see it, too.

A moment of silence passed between them.

"Ah, well, we shouldn't keep Hana waiting, I suppose, but I do hope that, in time, you will allow me to converse with you privately."

Lena nodded a little too vigorously. Her head gave a small ache and her face a wince. Angela said it would take a few weeks, but _bloody hell_ , she wanted to just stop hurting for two whole seconds. She still hadn't completely gotten over Reaper throwing her head down on a rock."I'd like that. Just maybe not tonight, eh?"

Zenyatta nodded and took off faster than Lena anticipated.

She was the last one down to the basement.

* * *

"BOOYEAH. In your _**FACE**_." Hana fell over with a fit of giggles and startled nearly everyone who'd drifted into the seating area rather than clumped around the television.

Genji had fallen to his death on the infamous Rainbow Road, but Lena thought he might have thrown himself off in a fit of despair and exhaustion. It was nearing one in the morning.

Lena rested her head on Angela's leg, who played with Lena's hair absentmindedly while speaking quietly to Fareeha. The two of them looked more than a little sleepy, but given the fact that Angela had been working day and night with Winston to fix Zenyatta, it was more than understandable. Fareeha looked into Angela's eyes like she hung the moon and stars while Angela looked at Fareeha like she was the sun.

Lena could feel at peace here. The last week or so had been more or less quiet. She could almost see herself settling down with everyone like a big family and taking time off of the hectic world, but another part of her pushed for the chaotic life.

It gave her something to hold onto. It gave her a _purpose_.

As she lay there, watching dust motes float by her face in the light of the can insets above, she wondered what she would do once they took out Talon.

If they took out Talon.

She put that out of her mind and pushed herself up. "Song, one more round and I'm out."

She stood and cracked her back both directions, much to Angela's chagrin.

Hana looked up from her controller but didn't stop clicking buttons. Genji was in The Zone and couldn't tear his eyes away.

"Sure, let me whoop up on this _loser,_ and I'll be at your service."

Genji laughed maniacally and jammed down on one button. Hana's eyes turned to the television in abject horror.

Her small avatar was launched about a kajillion feet into the air, and Genji's avatar popped up on the screen in a victory pose with a giant **1st Place** gold medal.

"That's not right!" Hana exclaimed, her mouth wide and gaping like a fish.

Genji popped up like he _wasn't_ a thirty-something year old robot man and pointed down at Hana with a laugh. "Genji Shimada is _back_."

Hana stood, pouting hard - bottom lip thrust out far enough to rest a plate on. "What do you _mean_ back?"

Genji laughed again, putting a hand on his mechanical belly. "Friend, do you think that Zenyatta's place of study is filled with gaming equipment?"

Hana made a frustrated squeak and stomped a foot.

She was _definitely_ a sore loser, and sometimes she took it too far, but tonight was playful. There was a sparkle in her eye at the new challenge.

Lena let out a yawn against her will. Her eyes watered. "Do you wanna call it a night?"

Genji tossed the controller down onto his sitting place, a lavish cushion, and stretched his mechanical body. Did he even need to stretch? How much human was still in there…?

She shook her head. It was none of her business, but her curiosity could never be squelched.

Hana, herself, stretched and shut down the console. "Yeah, I'll let Shimada have this night's win. You know." She dramatically slapped her hand over her heart with the smuggest smile imaginable. "I'm _so_ charitable that way."

Genji snorted in a rare laugh and took his place in a corner - off to brood, Lena guessed. She looked around and spotted Mei dozing in a large-ish recliner. Her head rolled forward and rested against a pillow she held against her chest like a shield. She wasn't much of a party-goer. Winston relaxed in a corner hammock and flipped through a paperback novel - undoubtedly treating another sci-fi novel like a comedy. Jesse had his damn hat tipped over his face and leaned against Jack, who had one arm wrapped around Jesse's shoulders and was polishing off his third beer.

Zarya and Zenyatta, however, were missing. Some part of Lena worried about the potential for a fight to break out, but she knew that Zarya was working on it and that Zenyatta could take care of himself if it came down to it.

Lena and Hana wanted to go have an _actual_ sleepover this time around. It had gotten to be a habit every few nights. It helped them both when they couldn't sleep or worse - woke up screaming in the night. Hana was a great comfort then. She quickly figured out that making snide jokes wouldn't help and switched over to her more caring side. Lena crawled into Hana's bed more than once to calm her whimpers in her sleep.

Once, Hana had threatened death to Lena if she ever spoke about her weakness and vulnerability. Lena just smiled then.

Lena ambled up the stairs, sleepy-eyed and feeling pleasantly springy like she'd just got done with a morning run or had a day full of light activity, but no, she'd just been helping out Hana and talking with the others… In groups, of course.

Hana followed shortly after her rounds of "good night's." There were murmurs and grunts in response, and the two dashed up the stairs to the main floor.

Quiet talk met their ears instead of anticipated silence.

"-know how you feel about me, Aleksandra. You do not have to conceal your distaste when we are alone."

"Look, robot man. I do not ask you to tell me your feelings, and I would like you to do the same. I have my _reasons_."

"Of which I am well aware." The kind voice was soft, comforting even. "You have every reason to despise what I am, but… If you are willing to take my intentions into account one day, I would simply like to… talk."

Silence. Lena all but clotheslined Hana who began to protest when she heard the conversation for herself. Her eyes went wide with shock and interest. Lena put a finger to her smiling lips. This was more progress than she could have hoped for.

Zenyatta picked up where he left off. "It does not need to be about why you dislike my kind. It can…" He trailed off as if thinking and gave a small chuckle. "It could be about your favorite color or… or your favorite things. We do not have to discuss why you continue to stay when your heart desires combat."

A split second of silence fell hard before broken up by a thunderous boom of Big Russian Laughter. "I may take you up on your offer, little owl."

Lena looked to Hana in the stairwell and mouthed, "Owl?"

Hana shrugged and rolled her eyes playfully.

"In return," continued Zenyatta. "I would like to possibly… offer some things that I have discovered about myself during my stay in Florence."

Aleksandra chuckled in her low baritone. "Spending time with _Athena_ -" She didn't quite spit the word, but Lena knew her conflicted feelings about their friendly, down home AI. "must have changed your thinking, yes?"

Zenyatta was quiet. _Ah, I am nodding_ , Lena remembered and almost giggled. "Yes, just as I am sure that your childhood changed your way of thinking."

There was a crunching sound that could have been aluminum, but for a moment, Lena was worried that was Zenyatta's cranial compartment crumpling under the mighty Russian's hands. "I think I am learning to like you."

Zenyatta did his iconic chuckle. "I thank you for giving me a chance, Aleksandra Zaryanova."

Lena could almost imagine the way Zarya would wave her hand dismissively. She muttered something in Russian, and there was the sound of a chair squalling across the tile. "Do not expect much from me, but… I will give you this."

Lena could hear her impossibly light footsteps retreating to her room. That's when she and Hana made their hasty escape to Hana's room

* * *

"Quite frankly, I can't believe what I just heard," Hana drawled as she flopped down on her couch. Lena did likewise on the bed beside her.

"Them? I'm just glad they're finally working things out."

Hana scoffed. "Yeah, it's about time. She's been in knots for _weeks_."

Lena thought to Zarya's face when Zenyatta descended the stairs from the attic workspace in his corporeal vessel. She'd looked slightly disappointed and completely irritated. It was understandable though, right?

 _Still uncalled for_ , Lena thought to herself.

A ping came from the large main computer on Hana's desk, and her phone made a similar noise only a few seconds later. Lena could guess who it was.

Hana launched herself from her couch and took to the computer, clicking a few things and pushing a button or three.

A bright, cheerful face took up a portion of the screen. "Hello, hello!"

There was light streaming through one of Lúcio's bedroom windows. It was probably only about seven in the evening where he was.

Hana's face, which still looked tired, brightened into a smile. "Hey, Lulu! How's it going?"

Lena laughed without quite meaning to. "Lulu?"

Through her tears of laughter, Lena could see Lúcio's smiling eyes turn toward her. "Hey, Lena, how's it going?"

Lena waved her hand. "I'm good. Don't worry about poor, little old me. Talk to your girlfriend."

Hana pouted playfully before turning her attention back to Lúcio.

She'd gotten used to Hana and Lúcio talking when she was there. He didn't seem to mind that Lena kept Hana company more nights than not… In fact, he seemed downright pleased about it. Lena could see why, though. Hana spent so much time alone - carrying everything so much by herself - that seeing her interacting with someone else might bring him ease.

"I can't be all she has, Lena," he'd once said when Hana slipped out to use the toilet. "She needs her friends to help her out, too."

And hell, had she been through it _all_ with Hana, even in their short time back to Drachten.

Insecurity.

Fear.

Highs.

Lows.

Hana held in a lot more than she showed.

She tuned back into the conversation when Lúcio began talking about his work. "Yeah, well, Viskar is giving us all a run for our money, but there isn't really too big of a problem yet. We had to relocate our base a few days ago." He shrugged with a smile. "Hana, you wouldn't believe it. We saved an entire _town_ from being destroyed."

Hana cocked her head. "We? We like who? Like the rebels?"

Lúcio laughed. "Yeah, _we_! Like Overwatch!"

Lena sat up with a gasp. The cold feeling in her chest that had been thus far staved away came back in full force. Still more secrets kept. Isn't that what brought them down the first time?

A shudder ran over her skin and the blanket on her arms suddenly felt too heavy and rough - metal chains weighing her down and dragging her. Dragging her into the In Between.

"Lena?" Hana asked, for what sounded not like the first time.

"What, love?" The words that came out of her own mouth felt like a plea for repetition rather than an indictment. Something about the feeling of speaking seemed too difficult - like her mouth couldn't form the words she so desperately tried to say.

She'd had that problem after spending too much time in the In Between. Her tongue had felt like a lead weight instead of soft flesh. In face, that's how her whole body felt then... and now.

"He said that he was part of _Overwatch._ We would _know_ something like that, wouldn't we?"

Lúcio put his hands up defensively, but he was still smiling. He was always smiling. "I didn't know that you didn't know!"

Hana stomped her foot. "Oh, when I get ahold of Angela Ziegler..."

He laughed, the skin around his eyes crinkling just a little bit. Lena could see what Hana saw in him, physically. Emotionally, too, for that matter. "Oh, no. Ms. Ziegler wouldn't have any of that nonsense. She wanted everyone to be in the loop. I've just been dealing with the big guy."

"DK back at it again," Hana murmured, and Lena almost smiled to herself through the haze of sleep falling upon her. She was fighting it off the best she could because of the encroaching terror of slipping away, but she was losing that fight. She'd have nightmares tonight.

Lúcio's quizzical expression _did_ make her laugh though. She needed something to hold onto before she lost herself in the haze. She held that burst of warmth close to her chest to fight off the encroaching chill of memory.

Hana waved her hand in irritation. "It doesn't matter. What's going on? Fill us in!"

Lúcio looked over at Lena with sympathy. "Maybe it should wait until morning. Lena looks beat."

The warmth began fading. She pushed herself up on her elbows and looked over at the screen. "I'm good, love." But it came out "'M goud, lo'"

Hana gave a small, genuine smile in response. She liked making Hana smile. She knew how hard Hana could be on herself.

"I can hear how good you are," replied Lúcio sarcastically, but still, the light in his eyes did not fade. "If you're sure, I can give you the quick and dirty of it all."

"You can give _me_ the quick and dirty." But then, Hana Song clapped a hand over her blushing face. "Oh, god, Lena, I'm so sorry."

Lena waved her away with a floppy hand. "'S all good, mate."

Hana was still smiling but her eyes no longer followed the genuity of her lips.

Lúcio was also hiding his own shining blush. He laughed nervously before continuing. "Well, I told you that we moved our base. Things are heating up between the rebellion and Vishkar, but... I think we can pull this off. I'm positive we'll pull this off! I think that we can manage to pull away and regroup, then hit them where it hurts! We can- Hana, are you okay?"

Her face still held onto its sarcastic smile, but Lena could see something change use under the surface. Her voice became digging and caustic. "Lúcio, how long has this been a thing?"

His expression became thoughtful for a long moment. "Around the time you joined Overwatch, actually."

"So... When I met you that time..."

"They'd contacted me, but I hadn't accepted then. Hana, what's-"

"Why did you accept?"

"Because I wanted to help a bigger picture! Hana, you really don't seem alright."

"Why didn't you tell me that you weren't working alone?"

"I mean, I thought you knew that I wasn't alone. I didn't think I made it sound like that, did I? Hana... Are you-"

The playful, bubbly expression had very quickly gone sour, twisted with anger and reproach. What had been hiding just under her skin sprang out without another warning. "No! No, I'm not okay." She took a shaky breath. "I have been worried _sick_ about you, Lúcio. I thought you were out there by yourself, taking on a massive project alone. I thought you were out there without anyone watching your back. I thought, hell, Lúcio is out protecting the people! Who's gonna be there to protect him, huh?" She shook her head, her fists balled up tightly. "I thought, hey, maybe he can manage with his little group. I thought, maybe, if they _killed_ you, I wouldn't know until the giant words were plastered across a news feed, and now, you're telling me that you've been safe as houses because you're working with _us_?"

She shook her head. "I'm not okay, Lúcio!"

He started to defend himself gently. "Hana, please, it's alright! There are disbanded Overwatch drifters all over the world. We attract each other, I swear! I'm safe. Besides, we have an informant on the inside, I'm pretty sure."

Lena almost couldn't keep up. The conversation had turned quickly and unexpectedly. She pushed herself to the edge of the bed and interjected, "Uh, should I go?"

Both of them snapped at her in a way that made her blood freeze, yet a smile played on her lips. "No!"

Hana turned her burning attention back to Lúcio as if Lena hadn't stopped them in the slightest. Lea thought it best to just let them duke it out for now. "An _informant_?"

"Yeah!" He shot back, slight irritation coloring his word, broken by a voice crack.

Hana rolled her eyes and gritted her teeth. "Oh, really? Who?"

"Satya!" He almost shouted back.

Lena cringed. They raved at one another from time to time in playful, shitty banter, but this felt like a genuine fight.

"Oh, _right_. _Satya._ " Hana went to hang up.

"Oi, mate, don't be like that," Lena insisted just before Hana pulled the trigger.

An angry hiss was all she got in return.

This was... Surprisingly intense for Lúcio and Hana.

Lena knew, firsthand, that Hana was incredibly insecure when it came to her relationship with Lúcio. She was afraid that the distance would hurt them, she said, but Lena thought it might be the fact that she couldn't keep tabs on Lúcio or stay in some kind of control. That's what made her good at those impossible games, right? Staying in control.

But Lúcio wasn't a game.

Their relationship wasn't a game.

Hana knew it.

And it terrified her.

From where she sat, Lena couldn't remember what she'd felt like when she was nineteen. All she knew is that she could have done some stupid things in the name of what she thought was right. Her mind flickered back to the cigar smoke blown in her fourteen-year-old face in the dark aviation hangar. Some stupid, _stupid_ things. Lena shuddered as the cold blew back in - the ever present blizzard in her chest. She didn't like remembering the past.

"Is that all it is with her?" Hana shouted, tears forming in her eyes.

Lúcio, who looked almost angry, paused, the lines of irritation drawn out of his features quickly and abruptly. "What...?"

" _Her_ ," Hana shot back, her voice breaking.

"Do you think...?"

"Yeah, Lúcio! Yeah, I do."

"Hana, I promise..."

"She's a hell of a lot closer than I am! And you're both beautiful. You have stuff in common, I'm sure! How else would you have gotten her to work with you!"

Lúcio's expression, slack with shock and sadness, turned into something confused and alarmed. "What - I- What?"

"You're both beautiful and gorgeous, and I'm just a _kid_ sitting around doing nothing! Of course it would be easy to ask her to help you!" The tears did not fall from her eyes, but they looked damn close. Lena found herself wondering how they stayed in her eyes and not on her cheeks. "You could just leave me behind."

Lúcio did something that Lena didn't expect in the slightest and nearly jumped out of her skin. He laughed. He laughed his musical, happy laugh and shook his head.

"And _now_ , you're laughing at me!"

Lena wanted to go over and give her a reassuring hug, but couldn't get her body to move. She felt like someone watching the world turn but felt powerless to do anything to help. Dissociation, she thought Angela had called it once. Lena didn't know if she believed that, though. She thought that maybe it was just the In Between sucking her back in through the hole in her chest.

"Hana, babe, do I look like I'm going anywhere?" His voice turned gentle and reassuring.

Hana sniffled in response.

"I promise you. There's nothing going on between me and Satya." His giant brown eyes were convincing. "Besides, have you even seen her?"

Hana sniffed again and wiped at her eyes angrily. "No." A pause. "Is she pretty?"

Lúcio laughed but put his hands up. "You got me there."

Hana rolled her eyes, but a soft smile was beginning to show through her swollen face. Lena figured that the boy had that effect on people, but then again, Hana was volatile and sensitive, despite her best efforts to seem like a hardass. "Of course she is."

Lúcio's eyes tracked to one side of his screen, and his face changed into something darker than Lena could have ever imagined on the ball of sunshine. "Hana, I have to go get a meeting set up for tomorrow, but I don't want to just end this here. We need to talk about this kind of thing. I'm here for you, and..." He trailed off, biting his lip in what appeared to be an imitation of Hana. "Just... I know I can't convince you, but I would never do anything like that to you. I, uh..."

Hana, who had pretty much stopped tearing up, smiled wistfully again - that soft, vulnerable smile that rarely saw the light of day. "Yeah, Lulu, me too. Go do your thing, and uh... Let me see what she looks like, yeah?"

He nodded, winked, and the screen went dark.

Hana kept the smile for another second before turning back to her sour face, but this time, it was less serious than others. "I can't believe he admitted she was _pretty_."

Hana's phone blipped with a message sound. It was a different sound than last week's tone. Hana picked up her phone and blanched. "Oh, god, Lena."

Lena tried to pull herself up even more but just ended up slumping farther down into the bed. "What is it?"

Hana threw her phone at the bed and scored by not sending it crashing to the floor like Lena most definitely would have. Lena sleepily picked up the metal rectangle and looked at the too bright screen to see a woman with sharp, angular features and a steely glare.

"Lena…"

"Well, she is pretty," Lena yawned halfway through the word 'pretty.'

Hana came over, her perfume smell washing over Lena in a familiar blanket, and snatched her phone away. She groaned again. "Oh, no… She's hot…"

"Yeah," Lena said in an attempt to comfort her. "But her codename sounds like a shitty maths teacher, so who cares?"

Hana groaned and flopped onto her couch. "I can't believe this. Maybe if I sleep for a few more years, I'll finally be pretty."

Lena swatted the air but hunkered down in her covers. It was almost three in the morning at that point. "You already are, you dope."

"How am I supposed to compete with those beautiful cheekbones? And her eyes… Did you see her pretty nose? How am I supposed to compete with sexy Satya?"

Lena laughed despite herself. "Hana, right now, I think you have taken my crown as Gayest Person In The Room."

There was a pause where Lena almost fell asleep, but a few words tumbled out of her own mouth, startling her back from the brink of unconsciousness. "Do you think it's weird that Lúcio is like... seven years older than you are?"

Hana laughed quietly - sleepily. "Y'know, Lena. I don't usually think about it, but like… Do you think I'm gonna date some NPC? He's _in_ with Overwatch."

"You just found that out."

Hana giggled again. "Yeah but… Shh, only dreams now."

* * *

Lena woke the next morning to find Hana fast asleep on the couch. Had she slept the whole night? Probably not.

She was probably just napping for a few minutes before getting back up and doing whatever she did. Lena thought again. Hana was probably completely immersed in her surveillance work and hacking every mainframe in a hundred mile radius. Sometimes, Lena wanted to ask if Hana could hack into the old Overwatch mainframe with Athena's help, but that had just proven to be a dead end of a thought. She couldn't bring herself to ask.

Lena couldn't help but feel disappointed in herself. She'd left so many things at the Headquarters.

" _Hey, Amélie, come take a picture with me!"_

" _Is that a Polaroid?"_

She shook her head gently and pushed herself up, her chronal accelerator's humming coming to a more audible range than it had been under the blanket.

" _Mon Dieu, Lena, why can't you take it off?"_

She'd laughed then. Genuinely laughed. She didn't know if she could laugh like that now.

Pushing herself quietly out of the bed with only a minor squeak of the box springs, her bare feet touched the cold hardwood and sent shivers over her skin. She suddenly wanted to crawl back in bed. Winters in The Netherlands were like that. Her left leg protested in a creaking groan coming from the knee. She winced in growing dread that she might have awakened The Beast named The Sleeping Hana Song. Hana wasn't exactly a kind person when you woke her up from one of her rare naps.

Cracking open a squeezed shut eye, Lena spared a glance over to the couch. Hana, despite the previous night's drama, looked peaceful in her deep slumber. She looked much younger in her sleep - even younger than when she was awake. Hana didn't have many years to spare when it came to de-aging. Lena's heart panged with concern.

She was still just a kid.

But… hadn't she been when she joined?

She was about the same age Hana was now.

" _Tell me about when you joined Overwatch, chérie."_

" _Oh, there's not much to tell. Angela put in a good word for me after I broke into the aviation hangar when I was a kid."_

" _Lena, you did what?"_

Angela. She needed to go have a talk with Angela.

No, Winston.

" _I've just been dealing with the big guy."_

She thought Winston shared things with her. She thought they were the closest, but…

Things change, don't they?

* * *

"Hey, love. I need to talk with you for a bit." Lena tried to sound casual as she leaned against the railing of the staircase that lead up to Winston's nook.

He didn't stop typing on his massive computer setup, but he grunted in assent, all the same.

Lena walked into the dark corner of the house, lit only by computer screens and a few blipping lights of half-finished projects. Something about it felt exactly like when they'd been in Switzerland. Lena spent long nights awake, watching Winston work on his things, not exactly understanding what was going on but enjoying his company anyway.

There was an unfamiliar tension in the air.

When had things ever been tense with Winston?

Since secretive behavior had become the norm, apparently.

She couldn't help but remember how he'd torn her away from running into the flames, herself, holding her back without much effort. She'd hated him in that moment.

She always regretted that moment.

The night before graced Lena with horrible memories of the past - specter images drifting through ruins of Overwatch HQ. Hana hadn't shaken her awake, so she must not have been screaming out loud. A thin frost seemed to coat her skin and lock her in place for more than just a moment.

Winston turned around, his kind gaze thawing her statuesque posture. "What is troubling you, my friend?"

Lena wanted to tell him, but instead, she lied. She'd been doing a lot of that over the last several months. Wasn't that what broke Overwatch down, too? Lies? "I just feel like we haven't been as close as we could be." Okay, it wasn't a complete lie, but it was enough of one to make Lena feel terrible.

Winston frowned and adjusted his glasses. "I thought you were too busy helping Hana to be pulled away to just sit and watch me tinker." He tilted his massive, shaggy head to one side. "I do miss your company, but I understand that bonding isn't always with one individual."

" _I've just been dealing with the big guy."_

"Winston…" She bit her lip and looked away. She didn't want to hurt his feelings.

He might have seemed like a stoic kind of guy, but his heart was bigger than most - not just because he was a giant, genetically modified gorilla with a giant, genetically modified heart. "Lena, what troubles you?"

It was the _way_ he asked it that made her sag onto the top step of the staircase and look down at her hands. They were scarred. She had a perpetual white mark in the web of her left thumb from where her blaster had simply exploded one day. She remembered it clearly.

Winston had been there to help her. And to lament that his creation had injured her.

Angela had said it was a miracle that she didn't lose her hand.

"Why didn't you tell us that you've been working with Lúcio?" The words were quiet, even to Lena, but Winston did react, just not in the way Lena anticipated.

He sighed. He sounded… ashamed. "I did not want to hide it from you all, and Angela did not want me to do this at all. She has not wanted to be in her position since I put her there." He took off his glasses and wiped them on his shirt. He didn't always wear heavy armor - sometimes he wore really loud, Hawaiian print shirts and massive cargo shorts. Lena always found it endearing.

He replaced his glasses thoughtfully. "I have… put too many responsibilities on Angela Ziegler since she was, before Jack's reappearance, the most senior member of Overwatch." He sighed, rocked back onto his chair, and looked over at Lena tiredly, but she could only tell out of the corner of her eye. "I will be honest, my friend. I do not believe she can keep doing the job alone."

Lena did not look up from her hands. "So you kept secrets from us?"

Winston sighed and rubbed his eyes under his glasses. "I didn't know if it would work, Lena. You know I wouldn't keep secrets if I thought it would hurt the team."

Lena looked up at last, her jaw set and voice quiet. "What if it hadn't worked? What if Hana found her _boyfriend_ dead when he probably would have been okay alone? At least _alive_. What if we killed him, Winston? What if we still _do_?"

Winston pushed himself from his seat and lumbered over to Lena, picking her up like a small child. "We will do everything we can to keep him safe, Lena."

Hot tears poked at the corners of her eyes. "Like we protected Amélie?"

Winston sighed a squeezed Lena in a hug. "No, this time, we won't let anyone get hurt."

Lena nodded against his giant, furry chest and then backed away with a sheepish smile. She wiped her tears away with a grin. "I'm being a big galoot, huh? That's your job, not mine."

Winston gently nudged her in what could have been a very threatening and damaging punch. "Yes, old friend. I will take that title if you give it to me."

Lena pulled back some more, dramatically walking around the room, prodding at all of Winston's small projects. There was something under a tarp, but she decided against that intrusion; besides, it only looked like a couple of nuts and bolts under a cloth. A silver chain hung out from one corner of the olive drab square, though.

She let it be and instead picked up something that looked similar to Angela's caduceus.

"Hey, Winston, tell me about this thing!"

He smiled widely, adjusted his glasses, and began to speak in the Most Professional Tone.

Lena almost laughed and found herself pleasantly comforted by falling back into old habits.

Things might change, but sometimes, it wasn't a bad thing.


	22. Time Is Running Out

Angela Ziegler came down from her ivory tower with Fareeha close on her heels.

Lena, who'd been sipping at a mug of tea with Winston, Jesse, and Mei, whipped around to greet her as she came into the general seating area. Angela threw up a hand to silence her, and some part of Lena grumbled in frustration. She just couldn't pin Angela down. She wanted to just sit and talk with her, but she'd been… surprisingly absent with the exception of previous game nights. It was now Wednesday, and Lena didn't know if she'd even seen her in the slightest in those few days since game night.

The general seating area was lit with a soft, warm glow from a Christmas tree that Zarya had just come home with one day. That's when they realized that Christmas was only a week away. They all hastily put out decorations and made the place look as festive as possible - all of them taking up their seasonal mugs for additional cheer.

Angela Ziegler, in this moment, did not look like an angel of good tidings and great joy, though.

She kinda looked like the Grinch.

"Everyone, we have a problem."

Jack wandered in from the kitchen, a cold beer in his right hand. "Can you bring us some good news sometime? 'Hey, kids, we're all going to the movies!' or 'Hey, everyone! We _don't_ have a problem!'"

Angela shot him a glare but nothing near as deadly as the one Fareeha distributed. Jack stopped ribbing her instantly. He knew where the line was, and this was clearly it.

Lena leaned over the back of the couch and sipped her mug thoughtfully. "What is it, Ang?"

Hana burst from her room with a loud thump and scrambled to the living room. Before Angela could get even a breath, Hana's wild eyes were searching - fearful, but searching. For some reason, she was out of breath. She didn't know if the others could, but Lena could see it. This is what Hana looked like when she was on the verge of a panic attack. The only thing missing were the shaking hands, and she was sure they'd catch up to the little one quick enough.

"Sniper."

The air felt like it had been sucked out of the room.

Lena choked on the little droplets of tea that got sucked directly into her windpipe, spraying her own face with her hot beverage. Her fingers felt cold.

Mei was the first on the reaction, a first, really. She seemed to take her time thinking things over, but then again, she was trapped in ice for so long, it's no wonder she was introspective. She plucked the glass from Lena's hands and rubbed on her back, patting gently every other full circle. "Angela, what does this mean for us?"

Jack pushed himself off the door frame in agitation. "It means that, kid, we need to check out Widowmaker to see if she's busted or not."

Like the harness around her chest, an icy claw dug into Lena's heart.

" _Chérie, were you cold?" Amélie's blue skin brushed against Lena's softly, inquiringly._

" _That's one thing that I remember most, love. It was so cold." She had shrugged then._

" _That's what it's like working for Talon, but… I think I just became aware of it."_

Lena gasped in an involuntary shiver. All but Hana's eyes were fixed on Angela's stoic form. Hana was watching Lena. She knew this kind of reaction just like Lena knew Hana's.

" _The flashbacks… Are they bad?"_

" _Sometimes. Other times they just hit hard, and I have to ride it out," she'd said only a week ago._

" _You get this look on your face…"_

Man, she _really_ needed to talk to Zenyatta sometime soon. These occurrences were starting to happen way too often for her comfort. The darkness every time she closed her eyes encroached a little more. The rapid breathing felt shallow like her grave In Between. Shallow, meaningless death.

Wasn't that what she was afraid of?

No, right now, she was afraid that Talon had broken her best friend.

Other, more confusing feelings stirred at the memory of those kisses in Florence.

Amélie was Lena's friend first and foremost.

They would figure out the rest later.

Angela's eyes moved from each face, saving Lena's for last, and something unsettling took root in Lena's chest - exactly in the center of her chronal accelerator. She felt lightheaded as everyone else turned to look at her. Had she flickered? She was cold enough to have believed it.

But… That hadn't been a problem in this chronal accelerator model.

Angela's voice was hard and flat, but her eyes held a great deal of concern. "She left a message for you."

Hana's hands began shaking. That's when Lena shook her head and went over to Hana Song. No one else could tell, but even a reassuring hand on her shoulder might be enough to help.

"A message?" Lena felt her morning sandwich toss around on the unsettled seas of her stomach.

Angela's lips formed a hard line. "She wants to meet you alone."

Lena felt her voice crack like her dry lips in the only reply she could muster.

"Oh."

* * *

A firm, staccato series of knocks made Lena nearly jump out of her skin. Again, she was only half suited up, but not for lack of trying. Her leg still didn't like being crammed into the spandex… or whatever the hell Winston made her suit out of.

And again, Angela Ziegler came in without another moment's hesitation.

Lena didn't bother protesting this time. It wouldn't do her any good.

The positivity with which she approached the previous mission that started like this was completely absent. She just pulled on her suit a little more.

"No squalls of protest, I see." It sounded like it might have been trying to be a joke, but the fear in Angela's voice colored her tone too serious for the joke to land.

"Not this time, love." Resignation.

"You aren't going to be alone. We're going to be there. We're _all_ going to be there." Angela reached out and pulled out a piece of suit that had folded in on itself.

"How did you get a _message_ from her, Ang?" The question had been on the surface for a few hours. They hadn't immediately jumped into action this time.

Angela cringed and did not look any more comfortable than when she came in. "I uh… she left a note on a surveillance camera in a place we keep watch." She shook her head. "I don't know how Talon knew."

Lena almost smiled, but that would have given her away.

" _If I need you, how can I contact you?"_

 _Lena mulled over the question for a long moment. "We keep tabs on the cameras in Heerenveen since the traffic funnels from there to our HQ. Just make yourself known. We'll find the message sooner than later."_

" _You're letting me in extremely close, Lena Oxton."_

 _The smile that Amélie gave Lena… Lena would have given her anything she wanted right then._

 _Lena smiled back. "I trust you."_

"What did it say?"

The question hung in the air like a dense fog, drenching Lena with sweat rather than mist. That made her suit even harder to pull on, a bit like trying to wrastle a sports bra onto a semi-damp body fresh out of the shower.

Angela's lips pursed. She looked like someone who was chewing hard on a piece of steak gristle. She looked so… Sad, maybe? Irritated? Hana once used the word "smad" to describe that look.

"I don't know if I should tell you, Lena." Just as Lena started to open her mouth, Angela put up a placating hand. "It isn't that I'm keeping secrets from you. I'm just… not sure if now is the right time. I know that last time I kept something from you, it did not work out in anyone's favor. Jesse fell from his training. I let you down. You were stuck in a horrible situation. Amélie… Widowmaker has horribly injured. I-" She shook her head. "I almost let her die."

Lena sat, still only half in her suit. When your family is hurting that bad, you don't tend to care about modesty as much. "Angela, you couldn't have known about-"

Angela looked up with an expression that made Lena stop cold. She'd seen that type of smile before.

" _That's the plan, chérie."_

"I _did_ know, Lena." The words hung heavily in the air. So much for hopes of an uplifting peptalk. This was… the worst case scenario. "I set him up to fail to bring him closer to us - to make him feel vulnerable. I thought that Zenyatta would calm him, but we just damaged his relationship with his teacher. No, I damaged it." She shook her head and looked down at her dainty, pale hands with a sour expression. "I wanted her to die to get rid of what I considered a _problem_."

Lena didn't exactly know what to say. Why was Angela spewing all this now?

"Lena, I couldn't see what you saw until the night I set you up with her. I knew Hana would leave you two alone. I just hoped… I hoped that I wouldn't find you with thirty stabs to your chest." She laughed bitterly. "And I didn't." She paused a moment. "Which meant that I couldn't justly execute her there. Fareeha would have been sorely angry at me for setting you up again, but… I could have justified it." She hadn't looked up from her hands. "I've justified so many things over the years. And for what? I've just pushed everyone away." She clenched them. "I've _tortured_ them."

Lena covered Angela's hands with her own. "Is this about him?" She dare not say the name.

Angela shook her head slowly. "No, this is about her." She sighed. "This isn't what I envisioned when I came here. I just meant to tell you good luck, and we're with you one hundred and ten percent." She offered a weak smile that made Lena's gut twist.

Lena felt like she was falling - into a fluffy pit of feathers or a pit of deadly vipers, she did not know.

"Angela, you did something right shitty. I can't say that I've… completely forgiven you, yeah?" She paused at the wrong moment and quickly added, "I can't say that I haven't either, for what it's worth. I want you to trust me, Ang. I want to believe that... feel like you can rely on me, and I don't." She shrugged and tried to sound silly and uplifting. "I don't want to end on a bad note, though, especially if I don't make it out of this one alive."

Angela's eyes turned absolutely horrified. "Would she hurt you?"

Lena shrugged. "If she's got the sense enough to send a message, she's either calculating her odds of killing me or eloping with me."

Angela's mouth scrunched up, puckered, then broke into a wide grin in a burst of laughter. "If those are the only two options, I hope she intends to elope."

That made Lena grin. "C'mon. Help me get into this ridiculous thing. I have a date."

* * *

Lena didn't fly a plane to Heerenveen. She didn't drive a car. She didn't walk.

Lena Oxton ran full speed for the first time in months, running, running, running to her goal. To Amélie. Her leg didn't really feel as good as it had before Widowmaker shot her, but Lena thought that this might be her new one hundred percent.

The wind in her hair and the sheen of sweat beading on her skin felt _elating_ , and she couldn't help but let out a peal of laughter. Her chest felt less like a dead hollow and more like a grassy knoll - full of vibrant life and standing out. The corniness of that thought sunk in and she laughed more. She paused, stopping abruptly and resting her hands on her knees. She was at least a few kilometers ahead of her teammates. The usually gleaming chronal accelerator gave its warning sputter as the light went out, needing a recharge.

She remembered the first time she'd needed to let the energy build back up in it - the way the light sputtered a few times before blinking out. She'd remembered the _terror_ she'd felt, thinking that this light was the only thing keeping her connected to this world, but now she knew. She knew that as long as the thing knocked and hummed like a mini MRI machine, she would be right as rain. She'd live to see another day.

That made another laugh come out.

The familiar _plink_ of her chest rang out like a sweet melody, and Lena Oxton, prize pilot - prize runner, started at a trot.

Then a sprint.

Then an involuntary "Whee!" as she took off in a rapid acceleration.

She had _missed_ this so much. It felt like a middle piece of the puzzle of her character had been completely ripped out - removed forcefully - from the fabric of her being.

Now, it was back.

A little beaten up around the edges, maybe nicked in a place or two, but it was still back.

She took off again and again, but she began to slow halfway to her destination. She pressed a hand to her ear and clicked on the earbud.

"Hey, love. Do you think you can land? I'm bushed." That wasn't entirely true, but she could use a break. _Don't want to wear myself out before the real fun starts._

"Aw, is little baby Lena _tiiiired_? Out of practice Oxton! That's your new nickname!"

Lena smiled and wiped a newly forming line of sweat from her forehead. Running thirteen miles in a few minutes was a liberating experience after being trapped indoors for so long.

"Yeah, yeah. Just land the damn plane."

"Roger dodger!" Hana's cheery voice clicked off and Lena threw herself into a field big enough to land in.

Hana landed there a second later, scattering many disgruntled, braying livestock - mainly Friesian cattle. Lena boarded but did not sit. Instead, she stood, gripping one of the loops attached to a rail above and smiling at everyone on board.

Everyone looked strangely optimistic considering the concern. The only one who looked out of place was, to no surprise, Angela. Her face was drawn into an indiscernible, neutral mask. Her eyes seemed out of focus, even when she spoke quietly to Fareeha.

Lena noticed that Zenyatta was staring hard at her.

She decided to let that be for now.

"Kid, you hangin' in there?" Jack shuffled his feet without looking up - not that Lena could have seen his eyes anyway. Winston repaired Jack's visor and helped Angela improve his glasses, which… he still refused to wear out of sheer stubbornness.

"Yeah, I feel better than fine." When it left her mouth, she realized, for the first time in a long time, it wasn't a lie. She was a little nervous, sure, but she was still pretty good, all things considered. "I'd ask Angela if she was okay, though. She's looking a little pale."

Jack looked up at Angela. "Tell her, Ang."

Angela shook her head. The note maybe?

She'd said she wasn't keeping secrets, but it was beginning to feel that way.

Lena let it lie, though. Bringing up tension in the group before a mission as delicate as this one might alter the best case scenario to a worst case. Tension could set Widowmaker off again. This time she wouldn't miss twice, Lena was sure.

Who _was_ the target for that matter?

Amélie wouldn't just turn up without a reason, would she?

Lena's heart skipped, and her mind started running as fast as she'd been going not much earlier. What if Amélie had seen the error of her ways? What if she'd seen Talon for what they were? What if she was _defecting_?

Maybe that's why Angela would be quiet.

Not to jinx it.

A cloud of doubt rumbled over Lena's sunny parade of thought.

But… Jack knew, which meant that Angela's silence was still more than a little worrying.

Jesse stood and squeezed Jack's thigh on the way. Jack mumbled something like a chiding remark, but there was no seriousness in it. Lena found herself smiling through her discomfort and growing well of anxiety. Jesse approached with his trademark, silly grin - minus a cigar. Angela wouldn't let him smoke on the plane very often.

A boom of laughter dulled McCree's initial salutation, and Lena noticed the large Russian woman slapping her forehead and punching Jack Morrison in the arm. Mei clutched Zarya's other arm and covered her face with it, blushing and giggling.

He spoke in a low voice, close enough to Lena's face for her to smell the stale tobacco on his breath along with his afternoon's coffee. "Hey, kid."

Lena just flashed a smile. For a second, she didn't trust her words not to be snide and sarcastic. She was still working on that with McCree. What happened in Venice…

He was trying to atone.

"What's up McCowboy?"

He snorted and rolled his eyes with a smile. "Never heard _that_ one before."

Lena couldn't help but genuinely smile this time.

He gave an ambivalent nod, his longer hair swishing over his shoulders dramatically. "I ain't here to tell you that I'm here as some angel of mercy." The corners of his mouth quirked up again as he shot a look over to Angela, who looked pouty and uncomfortable. He lowered his voice again - something a little hoarse and barely audible. "She's here for _you_. Angela might not wanna tell you, but I ain't fuckin' around. She says she comes in peace, but I don't know what to think." He paused, took a deep breath, and continued. "I won't go after her, but if it gets too close, don't blame me. I don't want your blood on my hands."

Lena grimaced as a nauseating wave hit her at the memory of Jesse McCree's shining, bloody metal fist glinting in the afternoon light.

Jesse backed away slightly and slapped her on the shoulder. A little louder, he said, "Yeah, yeah, don't get too sappy on me for wishing you luck."

Covering his own ass… He was good at that.

* * *

Lena never strayed far from the safehouse anymore. At most, she ventured through the town of Drachten, mostly just helping around the Headquarters and occasionally stealing into places she very well shouldn't be. From time to long time, she would ride with a few others to Groningen to have fun elsewhere, and while it was fun to get out of the Headquarters' four walls, Lena never travelled far even before Overwatch dissolved.

The only exception was when she would fly planes into thick areas of firefight and provide aerial support. She travelled for missions when Overwatch had been in its prime. She travelled for missions now.

It occurred to her as she stepped out into a field adjacent to the Fedde Schurer University that she never travelled for fun. She took a breath and smelled the exhaust from the nearby A32, heard the noisy sound of traffic, noticed the moo's of protest and the baa's of outrage from another field not too far away.

What would it be like to go far, far away?

What would it be like to travel?

She travelled with her family when she was very, very young. She remembered a thrill - a happiness there. Was it her family? Was it the travel? The exotic places maybe.

Or… It could have just been the plane rides.

She shook her head and looked around the clearing. Everyone else had piled out and stood around. Maybe they were noticing what Lena had. Maybe they were wondering why they didn't travel.

A giggle burst forth. They could never really _travel_ anymore, could they?

" _There are few people in Heerenveen. No one will get hurt there."_

 _Amélie scrunched up her face in disgust. "Do you think I want to hurt people, Lena?"_

 _Lena tilted her head. "I don't think you_ _ **want**_ _to. I think you have a lot of programming to overcome."_

" _Are you saying that I am more than my programming?" There was a faint smile on her lips. God, Lena wanted to kiss those lips again. And again… And again..._

She caught herself smiling and then Angela's eye. Her smile faltered.

The dark bags under Angela's eyes contrasted so terribly against her abnormally pale skin. Her eyes focused hard on Lena's but then unfocused entirely, like some physical thing had come between her and Lena and drawn her attention. Angela's grip of Fareeha's hand made her dainty knuckles white with strain. Lena could have sworn her hands were shaking.

Lena was no dummy.

Everything Angela had worked for - keeping the team together after all adversity - it could fall apart in an instant.

She thought to the massive contraption on her chest and frowned. She might not agree with Angela's methods, but could Lena say she acted any different under similar circumstances?

Fareeha had all but slapped the shit out of Lena to get her to stop spiraling and think of someone other than herself - her own needs. Lena was running so she wouldn't run out of time - so she could do as much as she could for the ones she loved.

Angela… Angela was playing her cards as close to her chest as possible so she could control it all. She was trying to control the situation to keep everyone safe.

Lena found herself by Angela's side and looked up at that messy ponytail that caught and threw the light like a refracting plasma lamp. Her wings were askew.

Without a word, Lena threw her arms around Angela's waist and gave her a tight squeeze. Her suit didn't exactly give, nor was it comfortable to embrace, but Lena did it anyway.

She closed her eyes and just held Angela tight against her. Angela huffed a bit, in surprise, perhaps. Then, strong, lean arms wrapped around Lena's back in a prolonged embrace. She muttered something in her native tongue and let go, but Lena lingered a moment longer before backing up with a smile.

"It's gonna be okay, Ang." She glanced over to everyone else.

Winston preferred to stay at home and keep tabs on the situation through Athena.

Mei was checking out her ice gun… thing… and practicing on some innocent flowers. Her tongue was held firmly in place by her dainty pink lips. She adjusted her glasses and smiled up at Zarya who fiddled with her ginormous rifle all of two seconds before hoisting it onto her shoulder and talking to Jack and Jesse.

Zenyatta floated not far from Genji, looking out at the pastures in the distance, probably. He'd once said that he liked to center himself in his surroundings before a mission. Genji sat near him on the cold, slightly muddy ground, presumably, doing the same. Lena wasn't sure why he would want to get mud in all his cracks and crevices. He didn't even wear pants.

Hana was climbing into her mech with a fierce grin. Lena thought she could see a small bottle of a shitty energy shot in her hand. She was, for the first time in a long time, streaming and babbling away at her followers. The first time since Venice…

 _Bang._

 _Bang._

 _Bang._

Lena shook her head to clear her thoughts and looked back up at Angela. Fareeha stood, surveying the scene and giving Lena and Angela their private moment.

"Child, I do not know if it _will_ be okay. I do not know how this day will transpire, and it frightens me." She laughed and pinched the bridge of her nose a second before dragging her hand down her sallow, thin face. "Please be careful. We will help as best we can."

Lena nodded quickly and backed away. She knew how Angela was feeling.

Powerless.

Afraid.

Guilty.

She set her jaw and turned from Angela, who still looked on.

Lena thought she caught Angela wiping a tear from her eyes. She turned a little farther away so she could let Angela have her moment, but… Something about this mission felt eerily familiar and comfortably foreign. The tides were turning, but which way?

Lena walked to the edge of the clearing, looking into the thickly wooded area now hanging low and sparse with evergreens and leafless deciduous trees. Sleepy. Skeletal. She would have to go into the sleepy town of Heerenveen alone for now. The others would be spread out, providing cover, but Lena was, more or less, alone.

She clicked the switch on her earbud and heard mumblings from everyone. There were, of course, a few voices that were louder than others - Zarya, for instance. Hana chattered to her mass following. Fareeha whispered words into Angela's hair.

This could be it for Lena E. Oxton, she thought idly.

Or it could be the beginning of something new.

* * *

Lena sucked a harsh breath through her teeth and blinked around the corner of a high-ish building. She might have been on the roof, but the figures wearing black coats startled her into hiding - just pedestrians on a cold winter day, but… She couldn't be too careful. As a matter of fact, Lena was being _overly_ cautious.

She almost laughed at herself and her skipping heart. When had she been known for her caution?

Since this mission started feeling fishy, that's when.

People bustled about in bursts, steeling themselves against the winter gloom in favor of ice skating and hot chocolate. That was Heerenveen in the dead of winter, finding that soft candle glow in the dark. And boy, did it feel dark.

Widowmaker was nowhere to be found, and a tiny, nagging voice said she'd just walked boldly right into a trap. The people in dark, woolen coats could very well be Talon agents in disguise, but… That was just the paranoia talking, right?

Lena rounded a corner to a large, well manicured, private garden. Stripped of leaves and flowers, it looked more like the overhangs in a cemetery or a shrine rather than a place of warmth and beauty. She'd run down crowded street after empty street. _It'd been_ … she wondered idly. _An hour of searching?_

Heerenveen wasn't a terribly large place, despite traffic flow passing through the area - like all the traffic flowed through but left the place blissfully unaware. That's how it felt in the garden. The world turned, but that garden was sectioned off from everything else. The excited children's voices seemed distant here. The roaring, older model cars chuffed like a quiet baseline. The shrubs may not have had their leaves to provide an extra barrier against the outside world, but the naked limbs did their own thing - cutting off this little patch of someone else's land from the rest of reality.

Lena's heart skittered to a near complete halt, her face flushing and the blood rushing to her head. That unreality changed quickly to chest-achingly real. Her eyes locked onto the chilling black spider wrapping its revoltingly long legs around purple-blued shoulder blades, but, thank god, it was partially obscured by a waterfall of shiny black hair that tumbled freely from a head held high. She held herself like someone who was struggling to look calm.

Lena recognized that look. Amélie had looked that way when the assassination attempt on Gérard happened - none of them knowing whether or not he survived. Widowmaker had looked that way on the roof all that time ago when Lena first broke the shell. She'd looked that way when she went to kiss Lena.

" _Nervous, love?" Lena laughed a little but not enough to push Amélie away._

" _Why would I be nervous?" The words were short and tense._

" _I mean… we're both out of practice, as far as I know."_

"Hey, love. Waiting on me?" Lena tried to control her erratic breathing and lurching heart. She sounded out of breath but not like she was holding in a scream. Good.

Lena's gut twisted when she saw Widowmaker go entirely rigid, her arms tensing and causing her hands to clench whatever they were holding. The rifle, probably.

"Salut, chérie."

Lena's shoulders, that were making quite the acquaintance with her ears, lowered at the sound of Amélie's voice. Not Widowmaker's.

The elegant woman turned, showing only a quarter of her face. There were bruises under her right eye. Or… were those bags…? Lena couldn't tell, but the deathly pallor of her skin would not be kind to any look of exhaustion. Amélie's glittering eyes conveyed some kind of humor. That glimmer of hope that flickered so feebly in Lena's heart sparked to life once more.

"Mind if I take a seat next to you?" Lena was already approaching the bench and prepping her butt for a good sit down. She pulled her jacket closer around her despite not feeling the chill on her body. Her suit was made to handle temperature change, but her face was not.

Widowmaker's gaunt face made Lena nearly cringe away. This was the most thin she'd ever seen Widowmaker. Her large eyes seemed to peer from farther in her skull - the amber light seeming more like glass than their soulfulness. Her soft lips were cracked and flaking. She chewed on the corner of her bottom lip.

"I know. It is not… a good look." Amélie waved a hand dismissively. "But I am functional, so what does that _bastard_ care?" She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "He doesn't."

Lena could hardly keep her hands steady. Amélie looked worse than she had when Talon had returned her the first time. Was this her escape? No… She was suited up like she was on a mission. Her voice sounded… fragile - sharp like cracked and shattered glass. No amalgam was keeping her together.

The chill of Widowmaker's voice crept in, pushing out any warmth Amélie had shown. "I'm here with a purpose." A too thin hand covered her mouth momentarily. The warmth flowed back. "Lena, chérie, you should have ignored my call."

Lena shrugged, that tension dousing her fire but… not enough to make her run. "I just heard it secondhand."

Widowmaker's eyes peered down at her with deadly cold. "Angela keeping secrets again?"

As if on cue, Angela's voice began whispering in Lena's ear. "Lena, I'm so sorry… I- I don't want to hurt you anymore."

Widowmaker smiled her cold, cruel smile. "Is that the good doctor? I can hear her desperation." Amélie rushed in like a wave. "Lena, I don't know why this is happening."

Widowmaker's cold clawed at Lena's insides until they were raw.

"Lena, do you copy?" Angela's voice shook like she'd been crying. Maybe she had been.

"I copy." A short reply, but what else could Lena say?

"Widowmaker's note- Amélie's note. She said that she's trying to run from Talon. She said she can't go back. But-"

Widowmaker's eyes narrowed. "I will not let Overwatch take me, either."

"Are you with her?" Angela's uncertainty was nearly deafening. "How can she hear?"

Lena blinked slowly and looked up at Widowmaker, who was obviously running the numbers on whether or not her clenching and unclenching hands should decide on putting a bullet in Lena. In retrospect, Lena just _thought_ she'd felt a chill at Widowmaker and Amélie fighting with one another, but this… This brought on true fear. Widowmaker wouldn't take out someone who wasn't her target, right?

Unless.

"Angela, I have to talk to her." The words felt slow coming from her own mouth, her tongue feeling thick and her spit too viscous.

"Lena, please promise me you're safe."

"I won't know until I talk to her."

"Lena, I… My child, I love you. Please be safe."

 _Click_. The line went dead before Lena could respond, which would have taken her a few solid minutes to even speak under normal circumstances. Angela never said things like that without some level of joking.

The baseball in Lena's throat was firmly caught by the mit of her vocal cords. She tried to swallow again, but when she spoke, she still sounded like a suffering bullfrog. "Amélie, we need to talk."

Amélie flickered over the porcelain Widowmaker's features, but Widowmaker was the one to unzip that _ridiculous_ fanny pack and withdraw a large folder with block print letters across the front.

Lena's heart dropped to the earth's core.

"Oui, chérie, we do."


	23. If I Believe You

The tinny, cracking voice from Amélie filled in with Widowmaker's frigid practicality, fighting its way through and forcing Amélie into contradictory statements, one after the other. The slippery slope Lena noticed upon first speaking became even more dangerous, her words increasing their contradictions as her hands flexed and fingers twitched around the stock of her rifle.

"I wanted to escape from Talon, but _my life depends on Talon's grace_."

"Lena, I can't live like this, but _fighting is what keeps me alive_."

It was, in short, incredibly unsettling. With every switch, Lena felt herself pulling away from Amélie, wondering if either of them would make it out of this skeleton garden or if their own bones would become part of the exhibit. She pulled her jacket close around her, despite its insulation. The numbness in her cheeks felt like it was climbing down on an invisible ladder and wrapping its clutches around the metal contraption on her chest. Her chronal accelerator hummed too loudly to her own hears, a droning that could drown out all other sound and light and… feeling.

Lena rapped her knuckles harshly on the stone bench to ground herself. She wasn't going to risk panic in this kind of situation. She _couldn't_ risk it.

Widowmaker caught Lena's attention, hard eyes glinting in the evening light peeking from behind clouds heralding sleet. "I have a choice to make here, Tracer."

"Amélie, please." Lena saw her own breath come out in a cloud. "Just come with us. It'll be alright. No one will ask you to do anything. No one will hurt you." She bit her lip. "You don't seem well."

Widowmaker laughed her humorless laugh. "Don't patronize me."

Lena put her hands up defensively.

Widowmaker tapped on the folder. Again, she said, "I have a choice to make here."

That second time froze Lena in her place like a tacky ice sculpture. Wasn't she the one that felt overwhelmed by any choices? That _had_ to be a good sign, right?

Amélie took hold again. "I don't want to hurt anyone anymore, Lena. I'm tired… I'm so tired… She talks and talks and tries to get me to go back, and I just don't want to be afraid anymore, Lena. Please." She shook her head, gritting her teeth. "She's just _there_. She makes so much sense when she tries to convince me… I'm so tired, and she won't leave me alone…"

"What do you want me to do, Amélie…?" The words weren't harsh. They were pleading.

"Can-"

Lena's earbud gurgled with static, and a broken voice yelled over the line. "Lena, wherever you are, get the hell out! Now! Talon agents are everywhere!"

Lena felt her eyes narrow at Amélie's pained face, the tears in Amélie's eyes more than just making her look pathetic - they were rolling down her cheeks in pairs. Lena didn't trust McCree to tell the whole truth when it came to her, but if there were agents, that meant one of two things. "Is it a trap?"

"Too random to be planned." A few shots nearly deafened Lena's right ear. "Looks like they _found_ her." Once more, he yelled, "Get out of there!"

Lena grit her teeth, and Amelie's large eyes watched her in what Lena could only all abject terror. She could understand why, though. The last time anyone in Overwatch thought she'd been laying a trap, she'd ended up half strangling one of the members and falling under even more scrutiny. Following that logic, why would Lena spare her at all? Fool me once, shame on you…

Except Lena knew that Amelie was not fooling her twice. This was an unplanned attack, at least by Amélie's knowledge. She picked up the tome of a folder with her name printed so boldly across the front. It felt like it weighed about forty-five kilograms - the weight of a tombstone. Her name had already been engraved on it for her.

"We gotta go. Now."

Amelie began chattering in a hushed tone about how "she" had been right. This might have brought more concern from Lena if she hadn't already been completely maxed out. A passing thought struck Lena that she brushed death's cloak every time she was near Widowmaker. It wasn't exactly a comforting thought.

A voice spoke from the purple lips of the gaunt woman still frozen to the stone bench. It sounded… familiar but not unpleasantly so. She'd heard that tone in the safehouse in Florence. She'd bonded with the speaker. Amélie and Widowmaker stopped arguing, and the third voice took place with Widowmaker's lethal, candid grace and Amélie's curiosity and warmth. "We can draw them away, Lena. _I_ can draw them away."

"Amélie, listen."

Her counterpart's eyes darkened. "It's only a matter of time before they find us here. They want me, yes? They should come find me." Widowmaker's calm eyes swept the perimeter. Shadows seemed to move over her face as her eyes tracked just behind Lena's shoulder, locking into place. "Do not move a muscle if you desire life."

In a flash, Widowmaker pulled her rifle to her shoulder and shot off three short bursts from the assault rifle function of her weapon. Almost instantaneously, three thumps came from behind Lena.

She swallowed, but the lump in her throat stayed firmly in place. She could really use a cigarette right about now. Maybe the smoke would dissolve that knot. Maybe it would just make her less tense.

God knew that she was more than a little tense now. Gentle fingers pressed against her head. It took a second to realize Widowmaker standing before her with skeptical eyes.

"No bleeding," and, seemingly to herself, Widowmaker sighed, "Good." She regained her composition and looked at Lena with desperation. "I don't want to kill more than I must. Please, let's leave this place."

Lena nodded and followed Amélie into the village, avoiding innocent passersby as much as possible. One or two small children caught sight of them, but responsible adults just laughed off their claims in favor of imagination. Lena wondered if Amélie caught their words, but something told her that Amélie was more focused on surviving the next few minutes than on small children. For a distracted moment, she wondered why _she_ was so easily caught off guard by small details.

Maybe it had something to do with Widowmaker's… Amélie's presence.

It was foolish, but Lena knew it was true.

Lena's static filled earbud burbled to life again. "Kid, are you out of danger?"

A voice that could only have been Jack's said, "Jesse, stop nagging the poor girl."

"There were three shots, and I am _not_ risking letting her get hurt by that-" He stopped short, and Lena could hear him taking long, deep breaths.

"I'm safe." She paused. "We're safe. We need to extract."

Lena rounded the corner just a step behind Widowmaker. A sharp, heavy force collided with the back of her head. A small cry of distress, pain, and confusion came out as a result. It took her a little too long to realize that nothing had hit _her_ but that she'd hit the brick wall behind her.

Widowmaker's wild eyes locked onto Lena's, forearm against her throat and pushing her against the wall. "I will not let anyone take me prisoner." Her voice was low and lethal. "Not even you."

Lena put her shaky hands up, careful to not drop her pistols in case of Talon agents, and squeaked, "Let's just get out of where there are other people, and then we'll handle it."

"There!" A gruff voice came from only twenty feet away, and Lena saw a black clad figure not unlike the two people she'd seen earlier come to a halt, pulling up his rifle.

Lena managed to take a step and push Widowmaker along with her, forcing the two of them into a rapid acceleration that put them three more feet out of harm's way.

Amélie froze, wide eyed and horrified. It wasn't the time for a personality overhaul, but it could be managed… Right? This time, Lena was the one to pull her pistols and fire the shots. She didn't like killing people, but she would fight to the death to protect Amélie. She would even fight to the death to protect Widowmaker. And the person she'd now come to know.

Winston had made her pistols to have virtually no recoil to protect her small wrists from any potential damage, and at this moment, she was more than grateful that he'd thought this through. She was having to multitask. Blinking, firing, running, and pushing Amélie into a safe spot free from fire. It was, unfortunately, too much for Amélie to handle. She didn't even like touching guns or looking at them in her past life. Lena, somewhere in the back of her mind that wasn't immediately dealing with the looming Talon agents, wondered how Talon had ever pulled out Widowmaker from her personality. She didn't want to know.

And her shooting… Lena felt herself turn red from embarrassed in front of Talon's most prized assassin. Lena could barely hit the broad side of a barn. She hadn't fought in months. The clearing with Reaper… That didn't really count. She thought that shooting would be as natural to her as breathing or flying or running, but boy, was she _wrong_.

She felled two of the agents by sheer accident.

"Run!" Lena felt herself shout. "North! We can lose them in the fields."

Widowmaker returned, and Lena was never happier to see her. A curt nod and a turn, then Widowmaker's shining suit caught the dying afternoon light. If the situation had been less dire, Lena might have pondered the way the suit clung to Widowmaker's skin and form. Now, however, was not the time to marvel at Amélie's ass.

Another shot whizzed by Lena's head, which brought her back to their grim situation. At least four other agents piled through the alley with the two original remaining. The buildings beside her, she knew from scouring the streets beforehand, were empty. The business market in Heerenveen had been suffering like the rest of the European world after the attack on omnics in Venice despite the months passed. Lena took a breath, steadied herself, reached around, and flicked the one latch keeping her pulse bomb in place. She'd have to make sure that Amélie was far enough away - a catch of light from the corner of her eye confirmed that.

The agents would have to get closer. Or she would.

Her heart raced and thrummed loudly in her ears. It had been a long time since she'd fought in close quarters.

The thrill of the fight got her insides humming in perfect harmony with her chronal accelerator. Sure, it was a device to keep her rooted in one corporeal form, but it was also an implement of war.

And she _relished_ it. She was lying to herself when she'd thought about her self imposed "no killing" rule. She might feel bad about this in a few days, but this wasn't the first time Lena Oxton had done something like this.

Lena dove in with a horrible rush, pulling the disk on her back free. She pushed it with as much force as she could muster against the Talon agent in the center of the mess, propelled forward by her chronal accelerator, and flung herself back. The force triggered that nauseating feeling of her own body being dragged through spacetime and backwards. The first time she'd recalled, she'd been driven into a blind panic, fearing that she'd lost control and gone back into the Between, but this feeling - this feeling she knew. This was Lena controlling her own path and destiny, even for just a few seconds. She threw herself another dozen feet away in a blink.

 _Wait for it..._

Lena came up in a roll, the feeling in her stomach threatening to let go or at least make her wretch. Her fingers felt numb.

 _ **Boom.**_

A smattering of stone splashed against her covered leg, and a plume of brick dust erupted from the alley as if it were a minor volcano of ash. Her ears were ringing, but if whether it was from the explosion or her own stress, she did not know.

She felt a hand wrap around her arm and begin pulling her just in time for the blood spatter to come into view from the dying plumes of carnage and dust. Again, she was glad for Widowmaker's cool and collected face to come close to her own. If she'd looked any longer…

Lena might have been able to see how truly terrible she could be.

She didn't want to think about that.

* * *

They ran. And ran…. And ran.

This kind of running didn't feel nearly as exhilarating to Lena as it had when she'd been alone and _not_ running for her life.

More than once, they paused for Amélie to catch her breath or lapse into an argument with herself.

"It's not too late to finish the job." Widowmaker's usually plain tone took on more of a fearful one, engaging in a conversation with herself as if trying to convince herself of her own words. "Finish her, and go back. They'll still take you now."

Amélie was silent, but the resolve in her eyes was something that Lena was no stranger to. Every once in awhile, Lena would see someone else - neither strictly Widowmaker nor Amélie. Lena thought back to the kiss in Florence.

That hadn't been Widowmaker or Amélie either. Maybe more Amélie than Widowmaker. Something so tenuously in between. Lena felt a shiver run over her flesh. _In Between..._

Wheels started turning as they reached the outskirts of the small village, but a bellow of rage halted her progress in a jake brake kind of way.

"Lena, what the hell are you doing?" It was… Genji? Others were nearby. Had there been a call to regroup?

Lena turned just in time to see Widowmaker looking down her sights at the metallic man, but the tall woman made no move save for her clenching and unclenching jaw. Behind him, Jesse McCree stood with his revolver drawn, his eyes hard and wary.

Apparently, there had been a regroup, but Lena's earbud, which had taken a heavy toll over the last few outings, had simply given out.

Angela dashed over, her wings wide and casting a soft glow. The softness of her arms reminded Lena of a time her mother thought she'd run away - relieved. Instead of Angela pushing Lena away in her rage, she just held Lena close to her chest despite her intrusive exoskeleton. The scent of Angela's faint perfume mingled with another smell that Lena didn't want to think about.

There'd been fighting.

There'd been bloodshed.

Had she fought with her team?

No.

"Angela, what-"

"Take her and run, child. Take her and get as far away as you can. We'll hold them off. They don't want us right now. They're disorganized, debased, confused..." Angela's eyes were dark and full of concern upon landing on Widowmaker's drawn rifle. "Gabriel - Reyes. He wants her, and he doesn't know we're here right now. If he did, that would be another story, and we'd all have to go, but we can manage for about ten minutes before things get hairy." She backed away and clutched Lena's shoulders in such a way that Lena was _sure_ that she'd have bruises in the shape of Angela's fingers. "Keep her safe. She knows too much."

 _About all of us_ , she didn't have to say.

A cool, gentle hand covered Angela's and spun Lena slowly away from her pained eyes. Zenyatta. "I wish I knew how to express the profundity of her safety." He paused, and Lena got the sense that the situation was becoming more dire despite not seeing behind her. "Even if we cannot guarantee her safety within our company, get her away from them." He leaned forward and pressed his glowing forehead against her own. "Go."

The rapid fire sound of Widowmaker's gun wrenched Lena from Zenyatta's comforting embrace. She wheeled around to find two dead Talon agents only a few feet behind Jesse McCree, who stood there wide eyed and pale. His obviously new cigar had fallen to the ground.

The person between Widowmaker and Amélie smiled wryly, hoisted her gun to her side, and walked by him to loot the bodies. "Jesse McCree, it looks like you've seen a ghost."

His voice did not betray him like Lena's would have, and in that moment, Lena was impressed by Jesse McCree. She could see why Jack and Hana had hearts in their eyes for him. "Well, little lady, I think I might just have."

The shadow over Amélie hissed and cursed in French. Lena knew the swear well because Amélie saved it as the most foul of her repertoire. Lena heard the expression a lot more frequently than Amélie would have ever liked her to admit.

Lena, in retrospect, remembered the next few seconds only as snapshots.

A drove of Talon agents.

Zarya laughing, Mei at her side with a wicked grin - a terrifying scene on its own, really.

Angela pushing Lena toward Widowmaker, shouting, "Go!"

Pulling Widowmaker by the hand.

Amélie crying once more.

The heaving breath from her own lungs felt ready to betray her - feeling more like a thick fog being inhaled rather than the chilly December air. Her chronal accelerator skipped a beat, and Lena nearly went sprawling out in the steadily falling sleet. She regained her footing as soon as she lost it despite giving her heart a good scare. She'd been working her harness too hard, and it was starting to show. Winston would have to work his repairs but-

Lena's left leg flared to life in her calf rather than the familiar spot in her thigh only seconds after as a result of her stumble. She spared a precious second to find a dart in her leg. Her first thought flickered to poison, but pain didn't spread. The initial sting of the dart faded into a calming, revitalizing glow that filled her body. She yanked it out anyway, ignoring the small trickle of blood coming from the puncture.

Widowmaker gave a small cry as well, but her gaunt, agonized features began to smooth a little - some of her color coming back into her cheeks.

The two of them ran again.

Somewhere in the back of Lena's mind, she was convinced that she could sleep a year once she got back to the base, but whatever had gouged itself into her leg made her feel less like death and more like the jittery wired sensation from too many cups of coffee.

. She'd have to go pick up the dart for Angela's examination after she was sure Amélie would be safe from Talon.

A few more minutes passed before skeletal woods, not too unlike the skeleton garden, sheltered them from prying eyes.

Amélie rested her hands on her knees and bent at a graceful angle. The curve of her spine was the same that Lena remembered from Amélie's dancing days. She'd never seen Amélie this worn out before, though. Maybe it was the malnutrition.

"Turn back."

The words of Widowmaker, Talon's prized assassin, chilled Lena to the core despite her gear. Lena almost wondered if Widowmaker was talking to _her_.

"No, no. I can do this." Amélie looked up, her eyes desperate and searching.

Lena shook her head and walked near enough to touch but didn't. "No, you don't have to go back. You can do whatever you want. I'm here for you."

They stood in silence, listening to distant gunshots. The knot in Lena's stomach did not abate but instead grew three times bigger. What if one of her team members got hurt while she was off babysitting?

She shook her head again, a little more vigorously. Amélie was as capable as anyone else. She might be fragile right now, but that didn't mean she wasn't capable. She was struggling with something - the degradation of Talon's programming. That had to be tearing her apart from the inside. That had to be a pain that no one else could know.

"Lena, what did it feel like?" The words were just as profound as her eyes.

Lena knew what she meant. It seemed like every one of their intense interactions brought up the Between. Sometimes, she wondered which was worse - the Between itself or being asked about the Between.

"It felt like I was being pushed and pulled in every direction at once."

"Did it hurt?" Who was speaking just then? She couldn't tell.

Lena shrugged. "It was agonizing, but you stop feeling the pain after a while."

Widowmaker laughed her icicle-riddled laugh. "Oh, chérie, you never stop feeling the pain. Save me the lies." A pause filled with panting. "You promised to tell me the truth, remember?"

The numbness in Lena's nose was now returning. The cold wind and falling sleet slapped at her cheeks relentlessly.

"I will."

Widowmaker took a step forward, close enough for Lena to feel her body heat. She grabbed Lena roughly by the shoulders pulling her up and nodded. "I can still kill you, you know." It wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact. But… she didn't look up at Lena. "I could kill you and every one of your friends. Reyes would thank me for my service. He might even employ me for longer than I am useful to him."

Lena wanted to yell and scream about how it wouldn't make a difference. How Reyes would just take her as a sacrifice to be made.

But her thoughts got cut short as Amélie plunged forward and pressed her lips firmly against Lena's - desperate... hungry… sad… Lena's heart lurched and her chronal accelerator gave a loud knock as Amélie pushed herself against Lena's small, shivering body. The warmth that Amélie gave back to Lena fueled some small, confused part of her brain that wanted to kiss _back_.

Amélie's chapped lips snagged against Lena's, and a faint coppery taste met Lena's tongue - a split lip. She began to pull away, but Amélie wrapped her long fingers in Lena's hair tightly and pulled her closer, her eyes closed and her eyebrows knit together. Lena let her own close, not knowing what the next few seconds held except more of Amélie's soft skin, even with her chapped lips. The _warmth_ of Amélie.

The snow's chill seemed to melt away as Lena tentatively placed her hands on Amélie's waist again. Amélie didn't seem to mind, her breath picking up slightly and a soft sound coming from her throat and through the kiss.

But.

Then, Amélie pulled away shakily, her eyes searching Lena's. "He hurts everyone he can, Lena. I'm afraid for you. I'm afraid what he'll do if he finds out that you're still alive. He'll do anything to murder someone who defies him."

Goosebumps broke out over Lena's skin at remembering the clearing - his proposition. His voice and his words. She _wanted_ to take him up on it. She didn't doubt that he'd not take kindly to being turned down, as evidenced by Angela. That sullied some of the kiss...

A brightness came to Amélie's eyes as the only bit of hope Lena had seen in years. "I have an idea, Lena."

Usually, that would make Lena enthusiastically smile and bring her close to Amélie's side, but caution took the reins. Time changes many things.

"You can come with me. We can go together. He wants us both, but if we stay together, he won't be able to hurt us."

Dawning awe and surprise caught Lena off guard, her head snapping back as if by a blow and pulling her even farther away from Amélie's face. Hope - realization hit her like a sack of bricks. Then reality dawned its dark head over the glowing horizons of that hope. "Amélie, I can't just… leave everyone behind." Her throat felt dry, and her words cracked like a pubescent boy's. "I can't just…" A shaky breath clawed down her throat and scraped at her lungs.

The reproach and withdrawal of Amélie shook her to her foundations. That hopeful light of Amélie was slipping back under the tombstone of Widowmaker as Lena spoke.

"I can't leave my family. You can come with us. You'll be safe there." Begging. Lena Oxton was begging. "Please…"

The terse words stabbed the knife into Lena's heart. "I thought _I_ was your family, too, Tracer."

Widowmaker's eyes looked hard down on Lena. There were tears there, but only in the afterimage of Widowmaker's face as she turned and walked away.

Lena heard a quiet, "Adieu, chérie," from Widowmaker now several steps away.

Before Lena could follow, a shot rang out and sprayed up the dirt at Lena's feet.

Widowmaker - not Amélie anymore - didn't want to be followed.

That knife made its final twist.


	24. Barking Dog

For the next several days, Lena didn't speak.

Lena didn't eat.

Lena didn't drink.

" _I thought I was your family, too…"_

Amélie had left Lena again in a cold, unforgiving environment, feeling as though she were face down in the mud, but instead of being shot in the leg like before, she felt very much like she'd been shot in the chest.

She felt hands start to drag her away from the spot, distant, muffled voices calling out. She didn't know what they were saying. A deep part of her, buried so far under the waters of her mind, resurfaced in an ambiguous, veiled form - nearly unidentifiable. The numbness. The cold.

Her nose wasn't the only part of her to fall victim to this creeping sensation - or lack thereof. Her fingers creaked like rusted hinges when her pistols were pried from her hands. She didn't know who did it.

" _I thought I was your family, too."_

Lena looked around, seeming to come to her senses just for a moment. The warm air blasted from the central heating unit and made her nose drip from thawing. Her comforter covered her mostly naked body. It was dark outside her window. Sleet pattered against the windowpane. Her hand reached for her nightstand without her willing it.

Pull the drawer. Rustle around. Pull the cellophane from a cardboard box. Flip the top. Click the lighter wheel.

Breathe.

" _Tracer_."

Taste the flavor. She liked menthols. She couldn't taste it.

Breathe out.

* * *

Lena was only vaguely aware that Fareeha had come in with a tray of food. She didn't move from her nest of comforters. On Fareeha's third step, the board creaked under her weight. The tray jingled, the glass and metal silverware clinking together in an offbeat, off key harmony. It all sounded distant to Lena's ears.

"Would you like some company, little one?" Fareeha's melodious voice was calm and quiet, but Lena found herself unable to respond. Some wall had been built between her brain and her tongue.

She jerked the upper half of her body in some form of assent.

Fareeha frowned and set the tray on Lena's dresser, which was across the room from her bed, but Lena made no particular fuss about it. She wasn't hungry anyway. She hadn't been hungry lately. She'd been sleeping a lot, though.

Fareeha sat on the bed's edge, careful not to ruffle Lena's nesting area. Lena pulled a sheet closer around her body, suddenly becoming aware of the fact that she was in her underwear and socks - not exactly good clothing for company. Her hand reached out toward the mostly empty carton of cigarettes before catching Fareeha's eye. Her hand slowed a fraction of a second but did not stop. She tapped out a single and lit it, taking two short puffs before wrinkling her nose and stubbing it out on the mountain of ever growing ash atop its ceramic confinement.

Anything to take the edge off, right?

She didn't like to drink alcohol, but she supposed now would be a good a time as any to drink.

Fareeha started speaking, but Lena couldn't make out the words. She was cold. She found herself swatting by her ear to make Fareeha's usually comforting voice quiet enough for her to rest, but Fareeha was having none of that.

She rested a large, cool hand on Lena's barely covered knee and spoke with perfect clarity, managing to reach the deeply recessed portion of Lena's mind that made her body work. "You should eat something. Angela tells me that you haven't eaten but a granola bar in three days." She sat back. "I would be thrilled to hear of late night runs on the pantry, but Athena tells me that you sleep, wake up, and sleep again." She glanced at the half empty glass on the nightstand beside Mount Vesuvi-ash.

Her reproachful frown was enough for a faint tingle of shame to flicker across the walls of Lena's heart. She didn't want to disappoint anyone, but she knew she had when she failed to retrieve Widowmaker.

Her hands began to tremble. She _lost_ Amélie. She _pushed_ Amélie away. She could have gone.

" _We can go together_."

A low sound started in Lena's chest and burst as an unanticipated sob. She couldn't cry anymore, but her body did its damnedest to try. The sobs rattled her chest hard enough to make her think it would come unhinged. The ache in her bones was almost as bad as the ache in her heart.

Strong arms wrapped around Lena, an encouraging embrace settling her coughs and wheezes and dry sobs. Their support let her sit up a little more - less dragged down by the weight of her own world. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Through her trembling, Lena managed to jerk her head in a "no."

Fareeha's warm cheek nodded against Lena's forehead. Lena pressed herself closer to Fareeha's body and let herself feel her own fears.

Days.

It had been days since Widowmaker. She'd lost track. The haze that coated the desolate wasteland of her mind was not kind to her temporal senses.

Her chest ached, and part of her wished to be sucked through the hole on her chest - broke cracking, void splattering pain a second before nothing at all. It'd only be a second. She could just take off her harness and go away.

That would hurt them for a while, sure, but wouldn't it save them in the long run? Wouldn't it have saved them this suffering now? What if-

"Your heart is heavy, little one. Would you consider talking with Zenyatta?" She paused a moment. "Or at least allow him to come in and sit with you while you eat."

Lena looked up through her tears and immediately turned away. Her shame was too great. She couldn't forgive herself no matter what Zenyatta would say - probably something along the lines of the fact that she couldn't have changed the outcome, but she knew the truth. What would anyone think of her if she told them what happened?

"We can't keep letting you waste away, my child…" Fareeha kissed Lena's hair and squeezed again, let go, and got up to leave, the bounce of the bed nearly knocking Lena over in its rebound from Fareeha's leaving ass. "Do you even know I'm in the room?"

A moment's hesitation took Lena by surprise before she nodded briskly.

"Others have visited, but I don't know if you even knew." She gave a weak smile as she opened the door, cooler, fresher air poured into the dank little room clogged with sleep-breath and stale cigarette smoke. "I will not push, Lena, but I am here if you want to talk." She looked away, bit her lip as if she wanted to say something else, and closed the door behind her.

Lena's eyes were transfixed on the white, hollow board door that stood closed in Fareeha's wake - the warmth of the summer goddess fading into the brutal cold that seeped in through the windowpanes. Her eyes moved to the food on her dresser for a moment, dimly noting food undoubtedly cooked by Mei-Ling Zhou. The smell, which would have made Lena's stomach growl at any other time, caused her stomach to groan in protest, turning to violence rather than hunger.

She dry heaved for five minutes before she fell asleep again.

" _Touch my skin, Lena. Make me feel alive."_

 _Lena watched as Amélie let the purple bathrobe fall from her shoulders, revealing her beautiful naked body from underneath. Lena made no move to accept Amélie into her arms, feeling as though there were something not quite right about her._

" _Are you going to betray me as well?"_

 _Desperation made Lena's heart race, her stomach unsettle, and her skin prickle with desire and revulsion._

 _Amélie approached, stark naked and smelling like blood. Her eyes were hollow, her face as gaunt as the last time Lena had seen her._

 _Her eyes changed to the cold practicality of Widowmaker. "I'm dying, Lena."_

 _She surged forward in a rush, all bony limbs and feral grace - her teeth bared and going for Lena's throat. Lena put her hands up just in time to catch Widowmaker atop of her, but warmth spilled over her hands, causing her to look down in terror._

 _Along her body were thirty stabs to the chest._

 _Lena was holding the knife in Amélie's heart._

"Kid." A voice called Lena's consciousness up from the fitful waters of sleep.

"Jack, let her be."

"She's crying."

A grunt. "If she wakes up swingin', it's your own damn fault."

Lena could hear, but her limbs were weighed down with immeasurable heaviness. The load on her chest - the exact size of her chronal accelerator - pushed down so greatly on her that she couldn't breathe. Panic flared up and washed over her, coloring her dark world red with terror and spectral blood. She could smell the blood and the brick dust from using her pulse bomb. It was still on her - staining her skin and clogging her pores. Labored breaths ripped from her nostrils and threatened to suffocate-

"Lena, it's alright. Just take a second." Warm pressure on her arm increased slightly in a gentle squeeze.

The lead weights on her eyelids dissolved, and she snapped awake, pushing herself from the touch. She smelled whiskey. Her father drank too much.

Lena Oxton didn't drink.

Her eyes finally fixed on an oversized cowboy hat that looked a little worse for wear but rooted her in the present all the same. Someone had pulled a cover around her, over her nest, to cover her body clad only in underwear and one sock. Her heart settled into an unsteady rhythm still heavily affected by her sleep paralysis. That had been happening more often since Widowmaker. Since Amélie. Her teeth found her lip and seized it, unwilling to relent until blood met her tongue.

She hadn't moved from her cold, bare back touching the wall, but she settled, less rigid, one hand no longer on the pistol she'd been keeping under her head.

"We just came to check on you, kid. Athena says you've been asleep for fourteen hours, and that's just not like you anymore." A pause. "Her words, not mine." He lifted his coffee cup to his face and suddenly remembered he was wearing his visor. He sighed, clicked the strap behind his head, removed his mask, and took his glasses from his shirt pocket before droning on in a tone that was good and fatherly. Like Gérard Lacroix. But then again, Gérard and Jack had been close. Gérard had been on his strike team. "Ang said you don't like coffee - makes you jittery. I brought you a mug of whatever the hell this British shit is."

Jesse had long since let go of Lena's arm but still eyed her. He threw his arm around Jack's shoulder and whispered something in his ear. Lena felt a twinge of illness as Jack smiled with a blush - who knew the old fart could _blush?_ \- and got up. He stole Jesse's hat with a quick peck on the cheek and walked out, setting the mug of tea beside Lena's empty cigarette carton. She didn't remember smoking the last three in the damned thing.

She only vaguely realized Jack was speaking to her right before he left, and the words had to marinate in her loaf before she could react.

"No one's mad, Lena. We're worried. Take care of yourself."

The door closed quietly behind him just as she was about to say the biggest lie of the century. "I'm fine."

But it didn't come out of her dry mouth. Instead, she coughed and coughed - coughing was worse than crying. It shook her bones and rattled her head. The dull throb in her head made her realize how thirsty she was for the first time in a while. She picked up the mug, avoiding Jesse's discerning stare, and sipped tentatively. Her body's first reaction was relief from a burning that she hadn't realized was there until the fires were quenched. She drank more despite it scalding her parched tongue. Her cracked lips protested and stung, but she downed the cup in what felt like a few seconds.

Then the sloshing, waterlogged feeling hit her from drinking too much too fast in oh so long. She burped more than a few times, afraid of gagging but never did.

"Glad to see you doin' somethin' besides chewing up your filters." Jesse sat there and tossed her a pack of crackers that she fumbled and dropped to the floor.

She didn't respond, just looked down forlornly at the plastic wrapped cheese crackers with peanut butter wedged between them. She liked the white cheddar and sour cream ones better on a normal day, but these just looked so damn… appealing. Her tongue ran over her ragged, flaking lips.

Jesse McCree offered a small, pitying laugh that made her insides twist with shame. She pulled the cover around her tighter and thought back to Widowmaker in Florence, looking like an angry child wrapped in a comforter. Lena wondered if that's how she looked to McCree.

He came over and picked up the pack of the square sandwich crackers that were now little more than cheddar dust. He pulled out another pack from his shirt pocket and pressed them into her hand.

This wasn't a side of him she'd seen before.

Maybe that wasn't true. He'd carried her back to the ship when she'd knocked herself silly on a rock. That had been the result of battle, though. Shattered crackers weren't exactly battle.

He sat on the edge of the bed, but Lena was more focused on how to open the damn plastic. Her hands were shaking too much - probably from lack of food or water for God only knew how long. She heard him sigh - in frustration or pity, she could not tell, and he took them from her and tore it open with his teeth. His face looked… sad. Not judgmental. Not angry. Oh, she'd seen him angry, and this was as far from it as she thought he could get.

He pushed a single cracker into her hand and nodded as if to say, "That'll do."

"I've been here, kid. Right where you are." He laughed a little. "Well, I had more clothes on than you do, I think, or maybe I didn't. Those times are fuzzy." He sighed, the small laugh disappearing into remembrance. He looked positively haunted. "You're older than I was, so I guess it hits you different, but it all hurts the same."

Lena could guess what he was talking about, but that cracker was just so delicious and inviting that she forced herself to eat it slowly. She feared that if she opened her mouth to reply that she would just inhale the cracker and make herself sick.

"Ellie... " He shook his head. "It still hurts to say it after all these years, you know. Her name." He paused and puffed on his cigar for a minute. The uneasy knot in Lena's stomach started settling as the cracker worked its magic. "When I… lost her-" _killed her_ "No one could do nothin' with me for days. Weeks, even." He puffed on his cigar some more. "I thought I was going to die, if I wasn't already dead. Hell, I was sure that I was. Sleepin' is all I could do." He waved a hand and seemed to be lost in thought for a good three second before taking a breath, eyebrows raised and head turned to the side. "I'm not too great at all this chit chat, probably, but I'm gonna ask you a question. Feel free to tell me to fuck off."

That almost made Lena smile - the muscles in her face twitching in most of the right places, but her mouth stayed firmly fixed in a munching close.

"Did you kill her?" The words were cold and flat, and Lena sat there for a minute, half eaten cracker turning soggy in her mouth completely unchewed for a few seconds.

Then, around her food, a cracked whisper came from her mouth. Her throat felt raw and strained when she spoke. "No."

Jesse dropped his head in a sigh. Discomfort rolled over Lena. She didn't like that look.

But then… He started laughing. "Well, there. That's something to look up about. Christ on a cracker, kid, you scared the shit out of me." The reassuring clap on her back nearly knocked the breath out of her, and in a grudging thought, she wondered how much anger backed that otherwise encouraging slap. "Hell, if she's alive, we can fix this. We can bring her home."

Acid burbled in Lena's stomach and ate at the walls of her throat. It took more than a little effort to swallow the rest of her cracker bits. That rising, corrosive goo in her throat did not like the cracker intruder.

She wretched.

"Woah, there. Let me get you a glass. You might have eaten too fast." Jesse put that metallic hand of his on Lena's shoulder to steady her, trash can in his flesh hand. He'd gotten to it faster than Lena could have. Her lead limbs fell limply at her sides, sloughing off the cover that had been the only thing keeping her mildly decent. Some shame pulled at her heartstrings about her state of undress, but she really couldn't care any less about it in front of McCree. From what he'd said, he knew what grief could do first hand.

He steadied her and pushed her gently against the corner to keep her stable and upright and walked out silently only for a minute before he was back with another cup of tea, still steeping, and a glass of ice water. Lena wrinkled her nose at the ice but remembered that he was just… so American that it hurt. Gratefully, she sipped from the water glass and washed away the bile encroaching on territory at the back of her throat.

She coughed away the phlegm from the crud and lack of speaking. The rattly whisper of her voice was all she could muster for the time being. "She just… She asked me to do something that I just couldn't do."

McCree sat on the bed for another second before getting up, rifling around in the large oak dresser, and pulling out a giant t-shirt from Overwatch's glory days. "I NEED A HERO" with the "O" being the organization's symbol. He tossed it at her, and she pulled it on, feeling a little silly at her near nudity. Her face burned with the intensity of a small forest fire.

Lena leaned over to pick up the cigarette carton again before putting it back down, remembering that there were no more in the pack. Or in the house.

"Out of cigs, little miss freight train?"

She shot him a glare but couldn't force down the tiny smile that spread her lips into a grin as he handed her a fresh cigar and a light.

She looked down at the thing that felt as big around as her forearm. "I'll pass, but thanks. I'm not that desperate."

He laughed a bit and nudged her arm. "You smell like shit, kid."

That wiped the smirk off her face entirely. "'S been a few days."

"No shit. It's Christmas Eve."

Lena blinked a few times. "What." It didn't even remotely sound like a question.

He nodded and puffed a little more. "That's why everyone's worried sick, kid. It's been… what? Five days?"

She nodded slowly before trying to smile. "I haven't even wrapped presents yet."

He snorted. "You look a little shaky. Want some help?"

She nodded again and looked at the pack of crackers in his hands. Her stomach let out an unearthly howl of desperate hunger. He gave her the rest with a laugh. "I'll lend a hand if you go get the stink off you, kid. Go get washed up."

* * *

McCree ended up having to do most of the present wrapping, which Lena would have gotten Winston to do at any other time. Winston probably got to see, first hand, how bad she'd been. Lena was fully aware that sometimes Athena would check in for a Winston Report. Athena wouldn't have liked what she saw.

Sometimes, Athena's new duds were startling because of their new shiny omnic take. Lena still found herself marvelling over the link between Zenyatta and Athena now, wondering if they could still be best buds once Zenyatta had to leave. Lena sat for a moment. Everything seemed so permanent - happy despite the current circumstances, and she'd all but forgotten that they were supposed to be far flung from one another.

"Kid, could you cut this tape off my finger, it's gettin' in the grooves."

"What? Oh, yeah. Sorry."

"What are you thinkin' about? If you don't mind me askin'."

Lena cocked her head, wondering if she should go out and say it or not. She did anyway. "I'm a bit embarrassed that I've caused so much trouble over the last few months. I just wonder if this can stay this way. All of us together." She shrugged and cut a corner a little too close. Jesse sighed and took the scissors from her. "The world doesn't want Overwatch, but _we_ do. Does that mean anything?"

Jesse nodded without answering. "It means somethin', but I don't know if we can stay so close." He sighed. "I hadn't seen Jack in a couple weeks when he turned up in Florence. I had no idea where he was or what he was doing or if he'd even come back. I think that he thought we were just havin' some rolls in the hay, but I was attached, you know?" He laughed. "I guess I'm more of a love kind of guy."

Lena creased the wrong part of the paper, and McCree let out a substantial huff. "Would you just let me do it? You're drivin' me nuts. I've never in my life seen someone so _bad_ at wrapping presents. Who even taught you? An animal?"

Lena shrugged and smiled as sweetly as she could. "Nobody taught me. I just put _my_ presents in _bags_ like a _sensible_ person."

He rolled his eyes and ran a hand through his ever growing hair. "You're gonna make me go grey." He sighed again. "Anyway, I had to sit him down and give him a good talkin' to about the whole thing, and I guess we came to some kind of understanding."

"What kind of understanding?" Lena wondered if she wanted to know, but she would do anything to keep him talking about himself. She didn't want to talk about Widowmaker.

"Well, I like to be all sweet 'n shit. I wanna hold his damn hand, but he's all embarrassed like it's weird he's screwin' this handsome hunk of All-American Beef."

"Ew."

He shrugged. "I first thought he had some kind of issue with me, but now I just see that that's his way. He wants to be all macho and - Goddammit, Lena, stop tryin' to help, you're just makin' it worse. He want's to be all macho and act like he's a tough cookie, but he's just a real sweetheart that worries way too much about everyone." He shoved away a small box that held Winston's present, which would have otherwise been shoved in a brown bag and thrown at him if Lena had been the one doing it. "It's like he's some knight in shining armor that gets all flustered if the dashing cowboy kisses his cheek."

"That's some fucking imagery right there."

Jesse made a noncommittal noise. "I reckon, but I guess the point is that he's been good for me."

Lena picked up a box that had cost her a good hunk of change, but with any luck, Mei would like it. "Here you go." A pause. "You two don't really seem too close in front of everyone else. I mean, it's more like you're an old married couple unlike..."

"Ang and Fareeha, yeah. They're hot blooded and constantly after each other. Me 'n Jack… Well, no one comes to visit our room for good reason, I reckon." He snorted. "We ain't that different from those gals. We just have more couth."

"Bloody hell, Jesse. That's some antiquated wording if I've ever heard it." She shook her head and smiled. His company was… nice. It made her less sad. Who knew he could be like this? Well, Jack apparently. "While we're on it, what's the deal with you and Angela?"

"The deal? Oh, you mean the whole grumpy Angela thing. Well, we just give each other shit. Gotten on each other's nerves since we were kids. It's all in good nature, though. If it wasn't, I wouldn't nettle her so much."

She nodded, but the silence grew long. That made her worry.

For good reason.

"Are you gonna talk about what happened out there in Heerenveen?"

She sighed and stacked another box onto McCree's pile of 'To Be Wrapped'. "Something's wrong with her, Jess."

"No shit, just look at her."

Lena frowned, a small growl coming with her next words, coloring them a shade darker than she intended. "I mean _really_ wrong. She kept… talking about Widowmaker like another part of her. Then she'd talk about herself in the third person and Widowmaker like she was talking about two other people. She-"

Jesse put a firm hand on her shoulder. "Breathe, kid. You're gonna hyperventilate."

She took a few steadying breaths, the uncontrollable shaking she hadn't noticed began to subside. "She said that she's breaking down. She's… I think she's dying." Lena shook her head viciously and instantly regretted that. Her stomach was displeased. "I don't know what part of her is dying, but something is really _wrong_ with her. She said that she was afraid of _him_. That she was running from him."

" _He wants us both, but if we stay together, he won't be able to hurt us."_

"She said that he's after me, too." That horrible pull in Lena's chest sank deep like the bullet she'd taken in her leg. Her thigh ached in remembrance.

Jesse whistled through his teeth. "No wonder you've been cooped up and starving yourself to death." He shook his head. "Whatever you've been thinkin', kid… I know it isn't good, and I know our circumstances aren't the same. I know you don't…" He lowered his head, becoming engrossed in properly turning down the paper corners before taping them down. "I know you don't trust me very much. But you have to understand that you couldn't have stopped that."

"He wanted me to join him, you know." The calm coolness with which she managed those horrible words almost stunned her, as if it were a horrible reality she'd come to accept.

His eyes narrowed. "You turned him down?"

Lena nodded.

Jesse McCree, former mercenary, current weird cowboy uncle, laughed. "Kid, you've got some stones."

She smiled weakly. "I didn't want to."

The smile left from his laughing vanished into a hard mask. "There ain't a ton of people who can tell him that they aren't interested. I _had_ to tell him that, or I'd still be rotting in a supermax." A pause before pragmatically adding, "Or dead." He scrawled Mei's name neatly in the corner of her wrapping paper - penguins and snowflakes - before continuing. "I don't know how he does it, but he makes it where you _can't_ say no to him without dying being your other option. It's like he… swoops in and starts putting ideas in your head that his way is the only way."

Lena's throat felt dry again. "Yeah."

In a way, she felt like Widowmaker had tried her hand at that, but she failed to seal the deal with Lena much like Reaper had also failed. She'd said no to Widowmaker - to Amélie. But her words still clanged around in Lena's head.

Jesse had stopped wrapping the present in his hands, a slightly larger package. "What'd she say to you, Lena?"

The words were slow and dragged off her tongue reluctantly as if they had barbs. "She told me to go with her. She told me to run away with her."

Jesse looked up, his hair falling into his eyes. "Why did you tell her no, Lena?"

Lena's breaths were shaky now. Sweat prickled under her arms and at the small of her back. Her nose felt as hot as her ears. "I told her I couldn't leave my family…"

" _I thought I was your family, too."_

"Oh, hon…" Jesse set aside the large cardboard box and wrapped his arms around Lena just as tears sprang from her eyes and carved out trails on her face. "You shouldn't have had to deal with that…"

"She said…" Hiccup. "She said she-" Sniffle. "Thought she was my family too."

" _Tracer."_

Jesse McCree, weird cowboy uncle, stroked Lena's hair gently. "We're gonna get her back." He repeated himself a few times, calming Lena's sudden onset of sobs. She'd probably be emotionally raw for a few days. "Lena, I'm sorry." He paused his words and his comfort for only a moment. "I should have listened to you. We _all_ should have listened to you."

* * *

Lena slowly made her way out of her hazy, ashen room, closing the door behind her and leaving the window open in her wake. The place could use fresh air after her one-woman pollution show. She didn't want to hear what Angela might say to her if she _did_ leave the door open. Probably something like, "Mein gott, little one. I won't be able to get that stink out of my clothes for days!"

Lena almost smiled, but crying for the last five days really numbed her emotional capabilities. She was mildly surprised that she could feel anything at all besides tired and empty. Somehow, Jesse was the one that helped her out in that time, the feeling coming back in her fingers and toes as he droned on about the finer details of his relationship. She guessed that, in some way, all that talk about his relationship made her feel a little better about her own; granted, it wasn't merely a communication error between Widowmaker and Lena, but it was a point to connect on. A connection with someone rather than yet another connection with a cancer stick.

She padded to the kitchen as quietly as possible, not wanting to rouse awareness of her departure from the sanctity of her room, and mused thoughtfully on how, despite all the advancements in technology, cigarettes were no better for anyone than they had been a hundred years ago. So why did she smoke them?

Stress.

Always the stress.

She sighed and pulled out the milk bag, snipped the corner plastic off with a kitchen knife, and set the bag in its pitcher. She forgot what she meant to do, so she just put the milk back.

"Good to see you verticle, dude." Hana's voice wasn't smug. Wasn't sarcastic. Wasn't even the slightest bit joking.

Lena found herself very glad that she'd forgotten what she'd been doing with the milk or else she would have dropped it in surprise. "Oh, uh," She put on her best smile, forcing the slack muscles and hollow feeling in her chest to do something other than stagnate. "Hey, Hana."

Hana leaned against the wall with wise eyes and a wise ass remark. "You don't have to act great and fine, Lena. It's pretty obvious that you feel like shit."

Lena rolled a shoulder and propped against the ample granite countertop. "Angela would have your ass for that kind of talk."

Hana rolled her eyes in a way that made her look younger. In fact, Lena felt like she was just noticing how Hana looked older than even a few months ago, the rapid progression of events aging her just slightly enough to sharpen some of her smooth, babyish features. Maybe she needed a few days alone to see how Hana had changed. Their closeness could easily cloud the little details like the noticeable curve of her jaw and the pronounced cheekbones with their little pink triangles. Were they tattoos, or was Hana just really dedicated to her image? "What Angela doesn't know won't kill her." She strode over with a stretch, pulling up her shirt enough for Lena to see a glittering, silver belly button ring with her mascot dangling from a ring. When the hell had she gotten one of those? "Sit down. I'll get some tea going, yeah?"

"Oh, man, Nana Hana is back in action." The smile that crept onto Lena's face was genuine, and the stiffness of insincerity abated.

Hana's face flared with pink fury. Her triangle whiskers were almost invisible. "Oh, _fine_ , I won't help you then. See if I care."

But she still went and put the kettle on anyway.

A rare, uncomfortable silence fell between them. Hana yawned. Lena looked down at the counter with sudden interest in the granite pattern. The pot on the stove began to scream. Lena nearly jumped out of her skin.

Hana laughed in her Hana way at Lena's reaction, and Lena couldn't help but smile again at Hana's cheer as she glanced over at the clock. For the first time in five days, she cared about what time it was.

7:56 PM

"Where is everyone?"

Hana gestured toward the basement stairs. "It's the new cool crib down there, so I think everyone just likes being near each other and near a big ass tv." She sighed. "Nothing on but news stories about Heerenveen, though. Locally, that is."

Lena almost started asking what the news reports were saying but found herself cut of by one of the biggest bear hugs she ever thought possible. And not even by Aleksandra.

The perfume told Lena who her mugger was before her eyes could register anything to her brain.

Angela.

Angela's wiry, muscular arms enveloped Lena and took off some of the weight that settled onto Lena's shoulders and back like some impossibly dense goo. The weight of Lena's chronal accelerator dug into Angela's chest - her unhindered chest - and complained from the blockage with a groan, knock, and a wheeze.

Angela pulled back for a moment, eyes wide and eyebrows high, before holding Lena close again, shifting to where she wasn't blocking the airflow to the front of the harness. Fingers dug into Lena's sides, and her body convulsed, a harsh, ugly laugh coming out in a bark. She pushed herself back gently, escaping the steel grip of Angela's gouging fingers.

The smile on her face felt strange, heavy, and cracked. It faded quickly and vanished within a few seconds. The dim, hopeful glow was as transient as Angela's remaining warmth on her dousing darkness roiled in on thunderclouds.

Angela tried to warn her.

"You're skinny as a rail. Do you want something to eat?"

Of course, Angela was doing her job no matter her emotional state. Lena's blood ran cold. Angela didn't always do that, but now she was. Lena almost wondered what she was playing at for a split second, but the guilt of suspicion allowed for those thundercracks to strike the playing field of her mind. The corners of her eyes stung.

"Yeah. I could eat." Lena's sore throat cracked her voice in a foggy, pre-cry way.

Angela shot a look at her form the corner of her eye, but let the faltering words a pass from prodding. It would come around, though. It always did. Maybe she was just waiting for Hana to leave, but Hana didn't look much like she was doing anything other than setting up shop to stay for a while. Angela went to the fridge and started pulling out cheese and ham, but Lena spoke up in her strained, crackling voice.

"Peanut butter and banana?" She could use some comfort food.

Hana couldn't help a snort despite her seeming investment in her phone.

Angela rolled her eyes. "If you'd eat it, I'd give you marshmellow fluff out of the jar."

Another transient smile touched Lena's lips. "I'll pass."

Angela poured herself off some coffee from a half empty coffee pot, but steam came off the nearly black liquid nonetheless. Her eyes, Lena noticed with a twinge of guilt, were hollow and nestled just above intense purple bruised rings.

A flash of memory lit up Lena's world like flickering Christmas lights.

Angela sleeping in bloodstained operating clothes just outside of an operating room, the peaceful look on her face so starkly contrasting the gore splattered onto her scrubs. She'd been in surgery for ten hours and saved a life. But. She looked so small and vulnerable and… human - nothing like the angel on the battlefield like she normally was.

That's how she looked now.

Not like some thing of judgment.

Not like a brilliant harbinger of life or death.

Her baggy t-shirt could only have been Fareeha's. Reinhardt's helmet stood on a blueish, rectangle background like his shield. Lena couldn't see Angela wearing a shirt with her old mentor on it. Her shorts were long - cutoff sweatpants that had gotten too baggy and saggy to be suitable for anything other than the scissors to salvage them one last time. Her face was makeup free, and her wet hair was little more fixed than a bird's nest or a haystack, given the mottled blonde and brown strands sticking out at odd angles.

She looked like a person. Just a normal person you might bump into on the street and apologize without looking too hard at her. Her fearsome aura was but a quiet hum in the overall peaceful music of her being.

A fleeting thought drifted lazily through Lena's mind. She looked like a young mother who'd just spent the night staying up for her child. Didn't she remember saying at one point that she wanted children? A child?

Angela took a loud slurp of coffee from off the top of the overfilled mug, and Lena couldn't stop a laugh - softness against the hard, sharp edges that she'd grown like protective spikes over the last few days. Hana looked up, a sad little _wah-waaah_ coming from her phone.

Angela began speaking as if she hadn't slurped a slurp like a small child. "I know I haven't visited you with the frequency of the others - just on your initial return, but…" She laughed, light pink feathers of embarrassment dusting her cheeks. "I was beginning to fear that you might associate me with bad times, child. I always turn up when you're in a drug induced haze. Maybe I don't look like a good angel anymore."

Lena's smile, her softened edges, hardened again. Maybe if Angela hadn't worried that it might all go tits up, it wouldn't have gone so badly. Maybe she was right.

A memory struck her. The stabbing pain in her calf that she'd felt when she was running with Widowmaker. Amélie.

"Ah, bloody hell, I didn't grab it." She was almost unaware that she'd spoken out loud when Hana made a questioning noise. Lena sighed exasperated and tired. "Out in Heerenveen-"

Angela's eyes cut over, hard, cold, and impassable, but Lena could see that she was doing everything she could to stay open to conversation.

"Something got stuck in my calf, but I don't even have the wound 's not even a scar." Lena rubbed at her eyes, trying to remember what it had looked like, but there was a wall in her memory as dense as the fog in the lowlands where she grew up. She'd been too preoccupied by Widowmaker and the chase. The running. "It was like…" A light pinged on over her head. "It was a dart! It was about this big." She held her fingers apart maybe five centimeters. "I dunno what it was, but it made my leg stop hurting and made me less tired. Not a good less tired. Like a-"

"Too much caffeine on an all night study session kind of tired?" Angela's voice shook slightly, maybe not from fear, like she herself had had way too much caffeine.

Lena slapped the granite countertop and pointed at Angela. "Bingo."

Angela dragged a hand over her face and leaned against the island, speaking more to herself than either Hana or Lena. "Mein gott, this is more than I ever expected."

Little question marks fluttered around in Lena's stomach like weird, curious butterflies. She didn't ask, though. It didn't seem like Angela was open to discussion, but Lena set her jaw. Just like Angela wouldn't let something go until she got her answer, Lena would do the same. She'd bide her time until Angela was vulnerable enough to talk.

Hana tapped an offbeat tune on the counter for about twenty seconds before huffing. "Okay, I know we're all being really sensitive and considerate here, but I kinda wanna know what happened to make you basically comatose for five days."

Lena gritted her teeth, the unease that had faded in the presence of her trusted circle ebbing the intensity coming back full force and then some. She felt nauseated. She thought, of all people, that Angela would nettle it out of her with her disarming words and insistence (She called it therapeutic, but Lena knew that she was just a terribly nosy person.)

Angela swatted the air at Hana in a "pipe down" kind of gesture but Lena put up her hands, palms toward the ceiling - a deep wishing for Zenyatta's intrusiveness to bless her with an out from the conversation. He was good at turning up where he was least expected.

She waited a long, painful moment before she realized that Zenyatta would not come to her rescue.

She sighed and took a long drink from her mug, wishing that it was McCree's homebrew instead of black tea. Angela interrupted just as she took her breath to begin the awful story. "You don't have to tell us anything, if you don't want to, Lena."

Lena rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right, I see your reverse psychology. You can't fool me. Too bad I was actually just going to tell you 'cause now you'll just be convinced that it works."

Angela snorted and started coughing a wet, sloppy cough. Coffee jetted out of her nose with the least grace Lena had ever seen. An angel? Nah, just Angela.

Hana rushed for a paper towel with a laugh. "Man, I'm doing so much caring for everyone that I'm _bound_ to give you a run for your money, eomma. Someday soon, _I'll_ be the one wearing the scrubs. Gonna have to get the good old mascot embroidered on them, though. Gotta have that brand recognition."

Angela pinched her undoubtedly aching nose with an exasperated smile, pushing up her reading glasses. When had she started wearing those? "Christ, have I been out for five days or five _years_?" She said it mostly to herself, but it got questioning looks from both Hana and Angela. She waved a dismissive hand before slurping up her tea down to the last drop. She started in on her sandwich and began talking between peanut butter-slurred words. "Basically, Angela was right, and Amélie wanted me to elope with her. Something was really wrong with her. She kept…"

Angela put up a placating hand. "By no fault of his own, Jesse was…" She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Jesse was _persuaded_ to divulge his conversation with you. He spared most of the details, but he gave the gist of it all."

Lena munched thoughtfully on a peanut. Crunchy peanut butter. Her favorite. She swallowed a little thickly. She could use something else to drink, but she wasn't about to ask Angela. "Yeah, I don't blame him. I'd want him to do the same if it were you, Ang."

Angela blinked a few times, looking over her glasses at Lena. "I'm beginning to wonder whether or not you had head trauma that went untreated."

That made both Hana and Lena laugh. At some point they'd begun to lean on one another's arms, getting close enough to bonk heads when the laughing began. _That_ made all three of them laugh. All the tension in Lena's shoulders seemed to ease, the warmth and familiarity of Hana against her arm and Angela's kind eyes doing nothing but drinking up the warmth from them all. The aching in Lena's chest only grew more painful, though. She couldn't help but wonder what it would be like with Amélie there. She couldn't help but wonder how they would all laugh and joke and be happy. She couldn't help but wonder what domesticity would look like.

Heaviness weighed on Lena's chest, mimicking the weight of her harness but much, much more debilitating. She sighed, trying to shove off some of the encroaching numbness. "There was more than what I told him, but I don't want to bring anyone down any more than I already have."

Hana tilted her head down to rest on Lena's shoulder. "You don't have to, you know."

Angela said nothing. _Oh_ , she wanted the details, but she would never so outrightly push.

Lena sighed again, trying to catch a big enough breath to fill her compressed lungs. Maybe she should stop smoking. "She seemed so… _wrong_. It's…" She looked down at her mostly eaten sandwich and pushed away the plate's remnants. Angela took it away and dumped it to get the smell out from under Lena's nose. Lena offered a small smile of thanks. "It's like the person I knew is still in there, but it's like the person we all know is there, too. It's like they're fighting, but…" She chewed on her lip. "I know I'm gonna sound crazy, but… It's like she knows that she's doing this and can't stop. There's another piece, too, but I can't make even a little bit of sense from it."

Angela nodded her head, seeming to look off into space. "I'm no psychologist, but it sounds like Talon might have splintered her mind." She worried her lip, which made Lena's stomach roll. She wasn't used to seeing uncertainty on Angela. "I've been doing a lot of research and digging through Overwatch's old files, thanks to Athena. There was a…" She frowned. "I probably shouldn't tell you, but I wasn't the only one doing big experiments. My experiments were on regenerative abilities, but there was an entire section dedicated to finding ways to bury parts of a personality to the point where it couldn't be recognized." She shook her head, and her eyes looked far, far away. "They had a few successes, but the half-life was too unpredictable. The original subject's personality would try to emerge from under the manufactured one, if left to its own devices - unless properly sustained. It would… degenerate. The subject's mind would branch off into separate sections, each part dedicated to specific interactions…" She trailed off, seeming to remember something. "There was only one full success even after the splintering. The subject overcame the experiments, but he wasn't… He wasn't who he once was."

Lena's eyebrows shot up. "What do you mean? Did he have a name?"

Angela's brow furrowed. "I didn't see one." Lena knew immediately that she was lying, but she let it be. "He was unpredictable. No one could control him. It sounds exactly like what you're trying to explain. Some third aspect came from the merger of the two identities, but… It didn't work out well."

That made Lena's heart sink. "Do you think she's beyond help?"

Hana said nothing, but Lena felt her stiffen by her side.

Angela frowned, her eyebrows completely disappearing behind the red frames of her reading glasses. "I think that these next few months will be crucial to that question. Nature versus nurture. If she's left to her own, it will rely solely on Amélie's internal strength, which we both know she had, but if she has negative interactions, Widowmaker is more likely to take control."

"And if they're good?" Hana inquired hopefully.

"Then Amélie is more likely to take the reins."

Lena chewed on her chapped bottom lip, pulling off bits of dehydrated, dead flesh. "What if she's neither?"

Angela tilted her head and said her next words slowly and carefully. "There's no way she can be neither, but… she most certainly can be both."

Lena swallowed. Both? There was something within Widowmaker - within Amélie - that desperately called out. There was also something horribly vicious sleeping with one eye open. That sent shivers rolling down Lena's spine, sending her arm hair stand on end.

Something about her now… It terrified Lena more than when Amélie had been firmly in the clutches of Widowmaker.

Hana lurched from her chair. "That's enough of that." She stretched and showed her little shiny piercing again. "It's practically Christmas, and I don't want to hear a single shred of bad news or heavy shit from anyone, or I won't give out presents."

Angela pinched her nose again, but with a smile. She rubbed on the bridge of her nose with her thumb and index finger and massaged out the indentions from the reading glasses. "That _is_ enough of that. Thank you, Hana."

Lena's unease was slow to go but placated by the two in such close company. Hana smiled wide and smugly, that Cheshire cat grin, and she disappeared down the hall, leaving the ghost of her smile behind.

She returned only a moment later, carrying two neatly wrapped boxes of entirely different sizes. The long, thin one's paper was neatly lined with brown and blue stripes, the other, smaller cube, a plain hot pink travesty. Lena had a suspicion that the pink one was hers.

Hana's grin was as bright as the cube's wrapping paper. "Early gifts. Small ones, just to take our minds off the heavy stuff."

Angela pushed Hana's urging hand away as she offered the long, flatish box. "Darling, you shouldn't have done anything like this. I don't need gifts." She smiled. "I have you all, which is more than enough for me."

Hana rolled her eyes and pushed the box firmly into Angela's hand. "Shut up, Ang. Take the damn box."

Angela's smile did not fade but instead grew stronger. She picked apart the paper, careful to split the tape around the edges neatly and nearly perfectly in half. She didn't tear the paper; the paper just simply fell from the box as she plucked at the tape in her surgical way. It was a box of chocolates. Expensive ones, from what it looked like.

Angela covered her mouth and ran her fingers over the box. "Hana, these are expensive!"

Hana smiled like a jackass eating briars. "It's just a small treat."

Angela shook her head. "I was going to ask you how you bought them, but I won't ask. I don't want to know."

Hana's smile grew. The suspense was killing Lena. She knew Hana better than her own self sometimes, and she knew damn well that Hana had a gag gift somewhere up her sleeve. Sure enough, Hana slammed another small box down in from of Angela with the same shit eating grin.

Angela opened this one with a frown and hesitant fingers. Last year, she'd given Angela massive granny bloomers. She'd given Lena dental dams. This time, when she plucked open the paper, bright red letters tracked across the front of the box.

CUSTOMIZABLE CONDOMS FOR MAXIMUM EFFECT

Angela busted out laughing, covering her face, which was quickly turning from a blushing red to a dangerous looking purple.

Hana smiled. "Oh, I know you don't need them, but it's what's _on_ them that's the best part."

Hesitantly still, Angela picked open an aluminum packed, ripping it apart with a soft, _shhk_. She unrolled the latex thing to show, in bright red, white, and blue letters.

 _JACK MORRISON'S_

Lena suddenly became nervous about Angela's health as she turned an even darker and more concerning shade of purple. Her croak of a cry was enough to make Lena cackle despite her concern. "IT WAS ONE TIME." A pause and an equally croaky shout - "HOW DID YOU KNOW?!"

Hana took again her seat beside Lena and pushed the box in front of her. Her smile had not once faded in the slightest. "Oh, you know. I have connections. Ears everywhere." She shoved Lena's box into her hands. Lena was suddenly very afraid of the innocuous, if garish, box. "Oh, it won't bite. Besides, nothing can beat the look on Angela's face, but I still want to see what you think. It's a part of a gift that only tomorrow will bring." She sighed dramatically.

Lena stuck her tongue out, nearly completely forgetting the heaviness in her heart and the anxiousness in her mind. She ripped apart the paper a lot less delicately than Angela - she'd never been particularly delicate when unwrapping presents. Or wrapping them for that matter.

The box inside was covered in "edgy" looking typography and intentionally electrifying wording, but it all boiled down to something simple and confusing.

Hair dye.

Bright pink hair dye.

Hot pink hair dye.

Lena couldn't help but laugh. She'd never once considered changing her hair color with the exception of once when she was young and wanted platinum hair like her band idol at the time. Her throat felt thick from the tears biting at the corners of her eyes - sudden emotion pushing those tears up again, but they were not necessarily bad tears. Such a stupid little gift, but it was as heartfelt as gag gifts could get - especially from Hana. That displacement she'd felt so deeply in her bones for what felt like eons, but had only been five days, seemed to ease and vanish almost entirely.

Tears of laughter rolling down her cheeks, Lena sniffed. "What the fuck am I supposed to do with this?"


	25. Silent Night

Hana and Lena climbed up in Hana's pull out bed, her own twin being too small for the both of them. The pullout was much less comfortable, but Lena didn't want to be alone, even just alone on a couch or in a bed. Hana didn't seem to mind.

Despite sleeping for the vast majority of those five days, Lena felt exhausted by the human interaction required of her that evening. That social obligation didn't exactly seem like it was going away, though, especially since Hana looked as hungry for information as a wolf might look at an injured deer, lower on the food chain.

Lena didn't feel like talking at all. She sighed. "Hana, I'm worn out, okay? Sorry, love." She squeezed her throbbing temples with the pads of her fingers.

Hana only saddled up closer beside Lena on the bed. "Oh, I won't _make_ you tell me anything, but I'm pretty sure you'll just start talking eventually."

Lena rolled her eyes with a tired smile fighting onto her face. "Angela's a lot more subtle. I would have thought she'd taught you the art of persuasion before any medical care."

Hana stuck her little pink tongue out. "She taught me the special places to kill a man bigger than I am, which is more than _you_ ever did."

Lena have a little side nod. "That's true, but I'm your sis, not your mum." She flopped back to avoid Hana's prying eyes. "Sisters don't do shit except look out for each other, right?"

Hana didn't say anything but Lena could feel her smiling gaze. She flopped down beside Lena and breathed a sigh of contentment. "You said you're tired. Wanna sleep?"

Lena's heavy eyelids drooped closed once in assent.

* * *

The next morning came from a dreamless slumber broken into a million pieces by sudden waking and, once, Hana throwing Lena nearly off the fold out entirely for throwing her leg over Hana's thigh. She'd yelled about no spooning rules or something. Lena was far too foggy to remember.

She stirred and opened her eyes to find Hana completely missing from the room and felt the cold hand of fear grip her heart at the thought of losing anyone even for a minute. Five days were a short time and an eternity.

Alone with thoughts.

Alone with herself.

"Hey, you alright?" Hana's chipper voice made Lena start with her hand going to her choral accelerator as if she'd been shot. Bullets went straight through, but it was still unpleasant and typically screwed up the hardware.

This didn't make her flicker. Just startled her. She took a deep breath and smiled at where Hana's voice had come from. "Do you always sleep on the floor?"

Hana popped up over the edge of the foldout with her Cheshire grin. "Better than fucking _spooning_. What the hell, Lena?"

Lena grinned a genuine grin this time. "Happy Christmas to you too, Hana."

The two of them took another minute to stretch and poke at each other about bad morning breath and unexpected waking up next to one another before going out into the general sitting area, which was already beginning to fill with sleepy bed heads and one particularly chipper Angela.

Lena assumed Angela and the unseen Fareeha had gotten up early to do more than just organize boxes under the tree. She shook her head, trying to forget the times she'd walked up on them or walked in on them doing… things.

Jesse's smiling face greeted them and looked too much like a kid on, well… Christmas morning. He patted the spot next to him on the floor with his free left hand and motioned to Lena. He was without his trademark hat and cigar and instead wore blue striped, matching pajamas. It was fucking wild. Lena thought he might not ever change out of his poncho and boots, but here he was looking like a Norman Rockwell painting.

Jack sat beside him, close enough for intimacy with hand holding and knee touching, but not nearly as close as Mei and Zarya, who intertwined legs and stroked each other's hair. Zarya's muscle tank was backwards.

Genji and Zenyatta were yet to be seen, but Lena figured they were just as busy as everyone else seemed to have been. Her heart ached a little at everyone's closeness, and there she sat empty handed and broken hearted.

 _No time to feel sorry for yourself_ , a more rational voice chided.

The less rational voice blew raspberries at the rational one.

Fareeha came around the corner wearing a messy, white, elastic on beard that looked like it had lipstick in it. At least, Lena hoped the bright red was lipstick. It looked positively ridiculous, but Fareeha's smiling eyes brought laughter to the surface for everyone in the living room.

Angela came in, clad in oven mitts and a knit sleepwear dress of candy cane stripes. "They're peppermint chocolate muffins, and for the grinches that don't like that, there's blueberry in the kitchen."

Lena barely noticed, but Jack squeezed Jesse's right hand at the announcement and rose, shooting Angela a bird. She, instead of her usual reprimand, laughed and slapped his shoulder with an oven mitt clad hand. Christmas cheer, right?

Fareeha took the tray from Angela, deftly slipping off the mitts to use as pot holders and placed them on the living room's long dining table that stretched against the western wall. She turned, took Angela into her arms, and began kissing Angela's face and neck, beard still affixed but now eschew.

Lena's heart panged slightly at the sight of them, and she could remember Widowmaker's chapped lips snagging against her own. With a great effort, she stifled a sigh of remembrance that often found her in the quiet of the night when she was unable to sleep. Their quiet interactions and loving gaze was nice for the ambiance, but the pain in Lena's heart only matched the burning of her leg as she pushed herself to stand. She could almost ignore it now, her leg. It would buckle from time to time, but she was mostly recovered, and she figured that it was as close to healed as it would ever get.

Hana was right beside Lena before she could even wince. "You okay?"

Lena rolled a shoulder and made a noncommittal face. She didn't want to worry anyone in the first place, but she sure as hell wasn't going to worry anyone on Christmas. "Fine. It's the ol' leg again. Not bad, but it still gives me the dickens when it's raining."

Hana's eyes flicked to the window. "Raining? More like snowing."

Lena looked over to the window in surprise. Sure enough, snow was falling lazily outside, and the fire crackled. A picture perfect Christmas with the most dysfunctional family she'd ever known. Her felt herself smiling - odd for her face after the days of isolation.

Jesse clapped her on the shoulder as he walked by to snag a muffin and handed one to Lena. "If you're one for the Christmas cheer, unlike-" He raised his voice. " _the grumpy old man_."

From the kitchen came, "Fuck you, Jess."

That brought another round of laughter from everyone, including Winston - who began descending the stairs from his attic hidey hole. Zenyatta, coming up from the basement, also chuckled in his very tranquil way. Somewhere in her mind, Lena wondered if it was against his teachings to laugh at such vulgarity.

Genji walked up close behind him and startled Lena for a good two and a half seconds. The top part of his face plate was completely removed, and his eyes shone with mirthful light. His smile was something that was partially gruesome but equally charming. His lower jaw was completely replaced by a metal mandible that circled up into where his hairline should have been. Without the rest of his faceplate, Lena could see what a handsome man he could have been, but with the white, knotty scarring, she wondered how on earth his brother had so mutilated him. The only thing to do that kind of damage would have been machinery. Surely, no one could have done that without realizing the wrongdoing being committed.

It was the first time Lena had seen his skin since Angela brought him back from the brink of death, but even then, she'd only seen pictures of his former self. To Lena, Genji was a man under a mask that had become the mask. Now, she felt slightly ashamed that she'd almost forgotten his… humanity.

Zenyatta floated (he rarely walked, saying that it didn't suit him) to Lena and put his hand on her shoulder, nodding toward the gooey muffin. "Merry Christmas to you, Lena."

She took a bite and munched, crunching bits of peppermint between her teeth. "Do you even celebrate like… real Christmas, Zen?"

He chuckled, and Lena could feel his wry smile just from his body language. "Do you?"

She inclined her head and swallowed the minty chocolate. "Fair enough."

Lena then noticed Genji's… pants. She furrowed her brow only for a moment before being nearly barreled over by Zarya, who caught Genji up in her massive arms and slung him around like the small man he was.

"It is good to see you taking my suggestion," she laughed heartily.

Genji's gnarled white scars stood starkly against the blush on his unmarred skin. "Aleksandra… you don't need to comment on my, uh, changes in appearance. As such." His voice was stiff and formal - was he _embarrassed?_ "As you said, it was… odd that I rampaged around so unashamedly in my seemingly nude form." He cleared his throat. "I should have picked up on it sooner."

Zenyatta hovered by Lena a moment longer and seemed - again, only by his aura - incredibly smug. "It's a shame that Doctor Ziegler's work is so hidden from the world's eyes, but I do suppose that he is more comfortable this way." He sighed. "He covers himself, but he need not. There is much to him that is scarred but intact."

Lena looked at the very tiny Genji laughing with the large, busty Russian. She'd never considered that parts of him were anything more than metal, but then again, she had to know that Angela had to have _something_ to build on.

Everyone was laughing. Everyone was close together and _enjoying_ themselves. The smile that found its way into Lena's face was both pained and hopeful. She remembered Christmas at the Lacroix house like it was only hours ago.

She hadn't spent a long Christmas with anyone since then. She'd been on the run, stopping by only for a minute here and there. It felt. Oddly nostalgic. She could remember times of Overwatch Christmas parties and times in her childhood, but nothing seemed as wholesome and dysfunctional as this. Her time with the Lacroixs was nearly textbook perfection of a nearly nuclear family's Christmas doings, but even it had its moments. This was like cousins and aunts and uncles and parents and siblings all ran amok with glorious fervor and barely controlled excitement.

Winston ambled over with a few delicately wrapped presents in the crook of his arm and placed them near the tree but not directly under nor in any particular order like the rest. He nestled in the corner of the room and took up a large portion. He didn't exactly have a place to sit except in his hellish recliner, which was taken over by the snuggling Russian and giggly Mei.

Almost like an audible record scratch, all the commotion of a happy Christmas morning screeched to a silence with a set of rapid knocks on the front door. Angela, the first to move, flitted to the door brightly and flung it open to reveal a short, smiling woman with silver grey hair hanging low over a black eyepatch, and a very… very large man holding a very large, red bag over his shoulder.

Nobody moved.

Winston, surprisingly, was the first to break the brief, pregnant silence. "Ana!"

Angela's laugh rang out cheerfully as the small woman wrapped the taller blonde in her arms. Reinhardt wedged himself through the door with his own booming laugh, and the room burst into flurrying action, almost everyone crowding around the newcomers.

Hana left Lena's side to buzz around just as feverishly as everyone else. Lena knew just as well that Hana had never seen Ana before, and Lena, herself, hadn't had much of a relationship with the woman. By the time Lena had joined Overwatch, Ana Amari had been appearing at base less and less, growing more and more absorbed in her work. Obsessed, some might have said. Even now, bent slightly and wrinkled by time, something about her was just so… intimidating.

Then a thought struck her.

Wait, wasn't she supposed to be _dead?_

Her head spinning, Lena's gaze lashed around the room, looking for answers, to finally settle on Fareeha. Ana's daughter was the only other one to sit back and let everyone else crowd the large man and small woman. Her eyes were dark, and her face was drawn.

Lena approached her, looking up at Fareeha curiously. "You don't exactly look happy."

Fareeha's eyes did not move from their fixed position on Ana Amari. "No."

Lena was smart enough to leave it at that despite her curiosity. And, damn, was she curious.

The raised volume from sheer excitement began dying down, and Lena noticed Ana looking over Angela's shoulder at Fareeha, making long, uncomfortable eye contact. Lena suddenly felt like she was listening in on a private conversation and looked away, but she didn't walk away from Fareeha's side. Being alone seemed to be the last thing that Fareeha needed at the moment, and Lena wasn't about to abandon her friend. Unfortunately, Fareeha still wore the terrible nylon beard and looked strangely comedic even through the dire situation.

Some part of her wondered why Angela wasn't providing more support.

Angela seemed to notice the mother-daughter staring contest and trailed off, looking back at the sullen Fareeha. Her eyes slid away from Fareeha's like food sliding off a teflon pan as Fareeha spared a quick, unhappy glance at Angela.

Ana Amari gently brushed past Angela and the rest, who were now watching and still whispering quietly.

"Lena," the rough voice said with a nod of her head. "How's the leg?"

Lena's mouth felt dry at the smirking, older woman's words, and like the breaking dawn, she remembered the dart in her leg out in Heerenveen. She felt her mouth fall open like a door with a bad latch. _**That's**_ _what Angela meant..._

Ana Amari just smiled with her thin lips and even more with the twinkling eyes.

The twinkle, however, dimmed as she turned her gaze to her daughter. Her mouth opened to speak, but Fareeha beat her to it.

"You didn't tell me you were coming." She nodded toward Angela as confrontationally as Lena had ever seen. "She knew." She jerked her head to Jack and Jesse. "They knew." She ground her teeth and looked at Winston. "He knew." She closed her eyes and took a breath, sounding a little less angry the next time she spoke. "You didn't tell your own daughter that you were coming. You didn't tell me you were okay. I haven't heard from you in _months_ , and yet somehow, everyone else knows."

Somehow, Lena thought it might be inappropriate to pitch in with an ' _I_ didn't know either, Fareeha,' so she kept her mouth shut.

But it was hard.

Ana frowned in the vacuum of silence left by Fareeha's words. "It isn't a good enough excuse, but…" She chewed on her lips in the same way that Fareeha did when she was carefully considering her words. "I didn't know how to tell you. Our last…" She looked around as if suddenly aware of the company. "Maybe we shouldn't talk about this here."

Fareeha stood her ground, shining calves glinting in the morning's firelight. "I think here is a perfectly good place to talk." Lena saw her jut out her jaw in a certain type of indignant stubbornness and could suddenly see her as a small girl with a vicious pouting streak. It might have been cute in a different circumstance.

Ana sighed. "Our last correspondence was not exactly on good terms, and I didn't know how to… tell you that I would just… reappear." She grimaced. "I didn't handle it well enough." She tilted her head. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

Fareeha's anger was as quickly gone as it sparked, and she blushed, looking away and pulling away the ridiculous beard. "Don't worry about it. Come get a muffin."

The tension in the room dissipated and filled in with laughter and merriment.

Lena remained still as Ana embraced Fareeha and began walking away, but Ana turned around to look at her. Her blood ran cold as a cold, calculating eye rested on her, assessing her condition.

"You should take it easier on that leg, squirt. Medicine can only do so much if you're stubborn." She winked.

Lena sweat.

* * *

After the thrill of Reinhardt and Ana's arrival, everyone settled around the tree and television where Athena chatted quietly with Zenyatta and Genji as everyone else twittered like birds.

Lena thought Athena looked happy in her still-new omnic presentation instead of her logo, which was more than enough to make Lena smile. Athena deserved a day off. Lena didn't talk to Athena anymore as much as she used to, but she still loved Athena. Still cared. She was part of the family too.

Zarya clapped her large hands, and Lena noticed ice blue nail polish on perfectly buffed and shaped nails. Mei's doing.

"I am impatient. Let's begin the presents."

Angela giggled and sneaked a kiss on Fareeha's cheek before flitting over to the presents, eyes bright and glittering. She loved handing out the gifts, and she always went in a certain order. This year was slightly different, but she amended her handout accordingly.

Zenyatta.

Zarya.

Winston.

Mei.

Lena. She smiled, butterflies taking off in her stomach. She loved gifts but never knew how to properly respond.

Jesse.

Jack.

Hana.

Genji.

Fareeha.

Then a blank spot where she'd once been, now conveniently building a wall between Fareeha and Ana.

Angela smooched Reinhardt on the temple every time she went by him. "My present to you," she said every. single. time.

They would, as tradition incurred, open one present per person in alphabetical order until getting to the last person, who would start the line again but in the opposite direction.

Angela loved that shit.

Lena thought it was rather cute.

Angela always got to open presents first, but this year was special for everyone. It was the first time that Ana Amari did more than ghost by in conversation, all ephemeral grace and deadly beauty. Reinhardt spent some time with them all, from time to time, but Lena didn't do much more than smile and listen to his stories. She felt a bit on the outside with him, unlike Hana, who loved to curl up beside the large man and watch his favorite old movies. Lena liked him and his company, but she never felt an urge to talk to him first. Maybe it had something to do with being a little nervous about the man who meant so much to Angela.

Ana looked down at her lap and at Reinhardt's hand covering both of hers. "It seems that I'm fresh out. Why don't you just open yours, Angela, dear?" Her smile was genuine despite the feigned disappointment in her voice.

Reinhardt, however, nearly threw himself from the couch and knelt beside Ana's leg, one hand still on hers and the other in his shirt pocket. He withdrew a small, black box with a large smile on his big, gnarled, handsome face. "Ana, my dear. I've been saving this present for years."

Angela began pumping her legs and squirming like a small, excited child. Fareeha looked impassive to an outsider, maybe, but Lena could see the absolute horror in her seemingly calm eyes. Lena smiled, but not at the storybook love tale before her. She smiled at Fareeha, who was watching her childhood hero and her mother getting fucking _engaged_ in a secret safehouse in the Middle of Nowhere, The Netherlands.

Lena watched Fareeha's face grow paler as Ana took Reinhardt's face in both of her hands and kissed him.

Lena felt the bottom of her own stomach fall out at the kiss. She couldn't help but wonder if things could have gone differently with Amélie if she would be here too. What she would think about Ana and Reinhardt sharing this intimate moment with a whole crowd? What would she think about all of them? What would she think of the _gifts_? Being able to have her own _things…_? Being _given_ her own things…?

Lena lost the entire romantic moment to her thoughts and chewed on an already ragged fingernail. Her chest felt heavier than usual. Her fingers felt numb. She suddenly didn't want to be in the room, presents and Christmas cheer or none. She wanted to go back to her room and be quiet by herself. Even more, she wanted to feel the night air against her skin and the forming dew through her suit. She wanted to run away from this.

She'd been running for so long, even before Overwatch gave her time powers and a gun.

Ana, now thoroughly wrapped in Reinhardt's bulging arms, placed a free hand on Angela's. "I did not mean to steal the limelight, child. Go and open your gifts."

Angela, still jiggling one of her legs, squeezed Fareeha's hand, who withdrew and folded her arms, seeming to be a little more contented than only minutes before. Lena felt alone when she looked into Fareeha's loving eyes as she complacently watched Angela's meticulous present opening ceremony.

She tore open her own gifts with only barely tainted enthusiasm and laughed and smiled with the others, becoming embarrassed when people would open her gifts to them. Her heart fluttered and skipped with every gift, thoughtful or seemingly generic. She loved her weird family.

She missed Overwatch.

Everyone made their rounds and lounged happily on their mounds of cardboard boxes and wrapping paper, tinkering idly with their gifts and gadgets.

Zarya wasted no time in wiggling her large fingers into the custom leather and rabbit fur lined gloves Lena bought for her, which made Lena's smile widen. She plucked through her other gifts and kept laughing at each revisit.

Mei flitted around snapping pictures with her new instant camera while attempting to wear all of the clothes given to her at once.

Jesse fiddled with a new belt buckle Angela had given him and longingly eyed one of Lena's gifted cigars. (The new belt buckle didn't look too different from the old one. It still read BAMF in big golden letters. When McCree pointed this out, Angela soberly informed him that "This one stands for Bad At Making Friends," with a twinkle in her eye). His eye, however, was easily drawn away by the rest of his hoard. One of his hands was occupied with Jack's, who sorted through a multitude of leather paraphernalia - sexual and domestic.

Angela was nearly hidden in a mound of bath products and fine robes, the rest of the team's subtle suggestion that she should take a day off. She also wasted no time flipping through the album booklets lodged in her CDs, which seemed a little old fashioned but endearing.

Fareeha had similar gifts, but what really made her blush and bluster were the stacks of trashy gay pulps. Her face seemed about as red as Angela's Santa hat.

Hana obtained oodles of merchandise from rare and obscure shows and movies as well as some vintage stuff from around Jack's time. He'd even given her one of his old band shirts, signed by the whole band. She looked like she'd struck pure gold to Lena. It was good to see Hana so happy and unencumbered by worry, even if only for a while.

Genji had many small things - a few books, a couple candles, a scarf or three. He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself, despite his push for a minimum of worldly possessions.

Zenyatta found himself with new robes and sandals, basics that he needed, and a connector cable specially designed to fit into his cranial compartment (still attached to his body)that could communicate directly with Athena's systems. He'd been very adamant - as adamant as Lena had ever seen, at least - about his policy against receiving nonessential gifts. Everyone respected _his_ wish.

Oh, and everyone got new Mei sweaters.

Which everyone put on.

Immediately after opening.

When everyone stretched out lazily, Hana stood abruptly and flitted to her room like an overexcited bird. She returned with an armload of strangely wrapped boxes and tubes. The way she tottered in made Lena laugh loudly while others chuckled. It felt good to laugh. Her load was nearly bigger than she was.

Hana quickly handed out the presents and bowed deeply. "Open all at once! Otherwise it'll ruin the surprise!" Her twinkling eyes were nearly closed from her fierce grin.

The weight on Lena's lap felt oddly familiar. But a box was just a mysterious box until she saw what was inside. She'd had so many gifts…

Quickly, _almost_ understandably, Hana blurted, "Threetwoonego."

Everyone tore in, paper ripping filling the air with a nearly eerie cacophony.

Lena pulled at the cardboard box's tape and ended up ripping the box flaps instead. She huffed and rolled her eyes but dove in through the squeaking styrofoam peanuts. Around the same time, she heard Angela's gasp and Jesse's laughter. Fareeha said a stream of words that vaguely sounded like she might be swearing in her mother tongue. Lena forced her curious eyes down until her hands wrapped around the sure grip of what could only be a blaster.

She pulled it out, squeezing her eyes shut.

She could feel her heart drumming an uneven beat in her ears.

She opened her eyes and nearly knocked herself backward in shock. Golden light glinted warmly off the barrel of a golden blaster, identical to her own. Except.

Gold.

Solid gold?

Surely not.

And yet.

It _looked_ gold.

But it wasn't heavy.

Hana's shit eating grin was all too apparent.

"Sooo…?"

Angela was the first to recover from her dumbfounded, slack jawed state of being. "Hana… are these real…?"

Hana snorted with an eye roll. "Of course they're real. What am I? Some kind of cheapskate?"

Jack looked up from his gleaming rifle. Lena, herself, hadn't quite recovered. "Hana, how much did this fucking _cost_?"

Hana shrugged. "Oh, you know. Over your pay grade." She said it so _nonchalantly_.

Lena felt her voice slip into the accent she'd faded over the years of not being near her homeland. "Oi, mate, what the fuck makes you think you'n go 'round givin' everyone bloody _gold_ weapons?" She snorted, thinking the blaster in her hand more a mantelpiece decoration than a functioning _thing_. And bloody fucking _Christ_ , she had _two_ of them. "Showin' us all up, love."

Hana smiled, unperturbed. "Oh, I plan on sending in Rein and Ana's orders as soon as possible, if they plan on sticking around for a few days." She looked away with some semblance of sheepishness. "Too much for you plebs, probably."

Jesse started with a chuckle. "Too much?"

His chuckle turned quickly into a crying cackle, repeating the phrase in wheezing whispers. Everyone joined suit. Zarya laughed until she was threatening to throw up. Lena's sides hurt; her cheeks already hurt from smiling so much. And some tiny part of her wondered how in the _fuck_ Hana managed to sneak _gold_ weapons past them all. She was really something else.

The corners of her eyes prickled until tears spilled over, but there wasn't anything in particular she would be crying about. Laughing did weird things to her. There was deep seated relief in laughing and catharsis in crying. Unfortunately, however, she continued on a moment longer than everyone else, drawing a concerned look from Angela, but she didn't think anyone else noticed.

Lena rummaged around in the bottom of her box to find another package, plastic and flat, and dislodged it from the packing peanuts. It was… hot pink. The same color as Hana's suit colors. And her accessories. And her… face decoration.

Lena's voice cut through the fading laughter. "Is this a… suit?"

Everyone else started frantically rummaging through their packaging.

* * *

Later that evening while everyone sipped happily on throat-burning eggnog, Reinhardt went around giving everyone small gifts from his travels. Lena skipped the beverages and Aleksandra's offers for her own personal moonshine, but she _did_ accept Reinhardt's gifts.

His gifts were always small but very personal. The fact that he thought about them while he was off traveling the world was more than enough, but he _always_ brought something back that startled Lena. Sometimes she didn't even know she needed it.

It'd been too long since he'd been around - at least two years, but he made up for it.

Lena sat a bit off to the side, nestling herself on the corner of the countertop, out of the way from any of the kitchen's cabinets, and sipping on some hot chocolate. Reinhardt left the great fray of increasingly drunken family cluster. Even Hana had been drinking, the rarity that it was.

"Hello, little dear," he said quietly. "You've not been interacting the way you normally do." He leaned against the counter next to where Lena sat. His head was level with Lena, despite her sitting on a relatively high surface.

"Hey, love." She shrugged with a little sarcastic eyeroll. She didn't want to worry him. "I don't like crowds as much as I used to, I don't think."

Reinhardt nodded solemnly. "Being in the middle of battle often has deterred me from throwing myself into crowds." He looked over at the familial cluster, all laughing and Angela singing and drinking quite a lot while sitting on Fareeha's broad shoulders. "This is family, though." His eyes turned soft as he looked at Ana's small form. "This is the kind of crowd I could get behind. I have left my family, and my children no longer know who I am."

Lena couldn't stop her eyebrows from shooting up. She'd never considered that Reinhardt had a family outside Overwatch, but then again… She couldn't imagine that a failed organization could keep anyone under their grasp like it could keep her. She had nothing else.

No.

She did.

She did have someone.

"My wife divorced me while Overwatch was still going strong and took our two little girls." He sighed. "I can't say that I didn't deserve it. I threw myself into harm's way over and over, and she couldn't take that any longer. We'd been married twenty years."

Lena, quite intelligently, interrupted, "Why are you telling me this?"

Reinhardt chuckled his deep chuckle. "I suppose that I'm telling you that the family you make is most important."

She smiled weakly. "This is more a family than anything biological I've had."

Reinhardt nodded and dug out a small box from his pocket, very similar to the velveteen box hed had for Ana. He opened it and handed it to Lena. She peered inside the faux satin lined box and saw a simple silvery band. "Remember who you choose Lena."

She took the box gingerly and with a confused expression. Her brain had blanked out fairly hard. "What is this?"

Reinhardt looked down with a twinkling clear eye, the other looking still as bright, if not clouded. "I hear things, Lena. You'll know when it's time."

He stood and walked off.

She remained, peering down at the silver band, and plucked it out, putting it on the fourth finger of her right hand with a smile.

* * *

After everyone was reduced to a raucous mess, Winston lumbered over to the quiet Lena and adjusted his glasses nervously.

"Lena, there's something I want to show you."

Lena smiled, still slightly bewildered by Reinhardt's gift. She followed him to his room in the attic. She'd missed Winston.

"You see, Lena, I've been working day and night to try to find you another alternative for your chronal harness. I know it can be…" He cleared his throat. "Cumbersome."

She cocked her head to the side, trying to calm her increasing heart rate and trying not to get too excited, but her brain and mouth had other plans. "You know how I can take it off?"

Winston laughed uncomfortably. "No, no, but I have made a way to…" He started laughing at himself. "A way to lighten your load."

Lena's brow furrowed. A small spark of agitation itched in her gut. "Well, what is it, love?"

He pulled out a small box from under a workbench, and Lena thought it might have been the same workbench where she'd seen something that Winston quickly steered her away from.

He pressed the box into her hand gently. It was about the size of a shoebox.

She looked up at him, one hand on the lid. "It's not gonna be some prankster box of snakes is it? You're getting my hopes up here."

Winston laughed and just nodded. "Go on."

And so she did.

Her heart sank a little at the contents - strangely colored jewelry of all sorts - earrings, bracelets, rings, and the like.

"Uh… Thanks…?"

Winston barked a startlingly loud laugh for his gentle demeanor. "I see your face and your lack of understanding. Let me explain." He went over and sat down on his hammock, patting beside him. Lena wandered over and sat, still confused. "You see, the way your chronal accelerator works is that it keeps you rooted in this time stream, to put it simply."

Lena snorted. "Yeah, love, I wouldn't really get it if you went into your sciency thing. I know mechanics, but that kind of stuff is _beyond_ me."

Winston nodded in understanding. "What this does is keeps you rooted in one place because of the way it's spread over key points on your upper body. The way your chronal accelerator works-"

"It's a large, focused point."

He nodded.

She frowned, her thoughts racing. "So this is like. Several weaker points to do the same thing."

He nodded again. "The only drawback that I see is that you cannot manipulate your time stream with these. That would break them and…"

A chill ran over Lena. She could think of what it would do.

On the other hand, though, her excitement began building and her eyes began stinging in the corners again. A mirthful bubble rose in her chest and burst in a loud laugh. Her laugh turned into tears again, but she didn't bother to hide them. Winston wrapped an arm around her comfortingly and let her cry.

Dear _god_ , she could finally look _normal_.

She could look like everyone else.

* * *

Lena crept back into Hana's room somewhere around two in the morning.

She carefully laid down on the pullout bed and stared at the ceiling.

Hana was more than a little passed out close to her, pulling down the bed on that side, and Lena could feel Hana's drunken snores rattling the air.

She'd felt minorly surprised that Hana was willing to drink the wine and the spiked nog, but it _was_ Christmas. She was with family.

Family.

Lena closed her eyes with a sigh, thinking thoughts about Amélie. Widowmaker. Whatever she'd been between.

She thought about Amélie's lips on her own and Amélie's hands on her shoulders.

Amélie had been a part of her family before Talon took her away.

Gérard had been a part of her family before Talon took him away.

In her own way, she supposed she loved them both - Amélie in a different way than Gérard but…

She shook her head.

Amélie was still her family.

She'd let Amélie walk away.

Words met her ears, almost startling her to a jump before realizing they were her own. " _God_ , why am I here?"

She sat bolt upright, heart beating hard, knowing what she had to do.

She quickly and quietly crept from the bed and grabbed her portable gifts and snagged a backpack from her room, grateful that she'd kept on her chronal harness. She was going to need it.

* * *

Lena whisked out of the bathroom, sorry for the mess but grateful for the silence and knowledge that everyone was as pissed as the night she disappeared and reappeared with a bullet in her leg.

She reached the back door, slightly concerned that her only form of communication was reduced to her phone.

The sides of her head felt cold despite the beanie she'd snagged from a drawer. She felt exposed.

Like a nerve.

She reached for the back door's knob, and died a thousand deaths as Athena blinked to life on the television in the general living area.

"Lena, where are you going?" Her voice seemed… tinny with fear. Lena could hear the attempt at modulation, but she knew Athena like no other. Except Winston. Maybe Hana at this point.

"Athena, I have to go. You know I have to go." Lena kept her voice quiet despite knowing everyone was out like a light. She didn't want to risk it.

"Lena, I can't." Her voice grew louder with panic. "Lena, last time you got hurt, we fell apart."

Lena furrowed her brow. "We were fine? You'll be fine, Athena. Just let me go."

Athena shook her head fervently and desperately. "I won't let you go, Lena."

She was scared.

Deep pangs of hurt and sympathy coursed through Lena, but another part of her was angry. She wanted to just be able to _go._ Lena took a breath and tried to make her voice sound calm. "Athena."

"I'll wake Angela if you try to leave." Her voice was growing more panicked with every sentence.

That did it for Lena. Her anger boiled over and colored her whispers, turning them harsh and merciless. "Athena, stand _down_."

Athena's panicky babbling ceased. Her voice came out small. "Is that an order or a suggestion?"

Lena gritted her teeth and felt herself almost hissing, filled with piss and vinegar and the need to _run_. "Executive order. Authorization code AA334, codename Tracer. Stand down. Tell no one."

Athena's image flickered to her logo, tinted red, and her voice came out small and as monotone as Lena had ever heard. "I thought we were more to you than that."

And she blinked off.

Lena felt a small flicker of shame threaten to blaze within her, but she squashed it. Now wasn't the time to feel sorry for herself or anyone else.

Now was time to leave.


	26. Interlude

Hana Song awoke with a terrible headache that morning and was suddenly grateful that Lena insisted she drink a sip of water for every sip of alcohol. She couldn't imagine what kind of shape she'd be in if she hadn't.  
She rolled over on the pullout mattress with a groan and noticed Lena wasn't lying next to her. Her first thought came muddled and fuzzy. She's probably showering.  
But then Hana noticed a note on her door, taped up there plain as day.  
She threw herself out of bed and snagged the note, eyes scanning over it before she even had it in her hand. Her eyes went wide.  
The bottom of her stomach fell out.  
Tears started falling again.  
Lena Oxton, you fucking idiot.  
Soft knocks interrupted a sob breaking from her throat.  
Angela poked her head in at the sound with wide, terrified eyes. It's like she knew before Hana could even say, but she held the paper out anyway.  
Angela squinted and tracked her eyes over it quickly.  
Her words were quiet, horrified, and angry. "Oh, no." 


	27. Used

"I don't know what's wrong with Athena. I've run as many diagnostics as I can, and she won't respond to anything other than commands," sighed Winston in defeat.

Zenyatta was aware that, if he could have moved his face, he would have been frowning. A deep discontent and worry washed over him temporarily before fading out again.

Like a current through a circuit board…

Angela wrinkled her forehead, and Zenyatta could almost feel the tension in the room. Hana bounced her legs in silent agony, her face red, puffy, and turned away. Genji paced, which sparked the slightest annoyance in Zenyatta, but he supposed that it was one of the only ways Genji could center himself. Fareeha stood silently, but the crease between her brows was apparent and out of character.

Mei was crying, not trying to hold it in.

Aleksandra, Zenyatta tilted his head to listen closer, was offering her small words of comfort and stuffing down her tears. That wasn't exactly an ideal coping method, but he sighed. There was much grief among these people, and he was not immune to that pull, that agony.

The only difference between them and himself was that he knew it to be temporary and took comfort in that knowledge.

Jesse McCree kept looking down at his hands silently and with a distant look in his eyes. Jack held one of Jesse's hands in one that had been badly scarred by the Overwatch Headquarters accident. Zenyatta could see Jesse's white knuckles as he held tightly onto Jack Morrison, and if he could have smiled, he would have.

He'd been trying to teach them both that needing others to be okay wasn't a bad thing by any means, but they'd resisted.

Zenyatta had guided them to each other, and they took comfort in one another eventually. That was all he could ask for. Sometimes, he wished they would find ways to be independently content, but then again, he confided in Genji in a similar fashion.

He turned his internal thoughts back to the matter at hand - Winston's tired eyes staring almost blankly at Athena's monitor.

 _Curious. She's reverted back to her logo. She seemed so content with her alternate form until..._

Angela huffed. "How are we supposed to find her if Athena isn't cooperating?"

Winston's eyes flicked to Angela but drifted absentmindedly back to Athena's large screen. "Right now, Angela, two of our girls are missing." He shrugged his great shoulders, shrouded in a bright blue shirt decorated in white tiger lilies. "One just had the courtesy to leave a note."

Zenyatta felt a coursing memory swirl to life - the sense of mobile facial features while in Athena's systems. Sometimes, he longed to be able to move freely, but he could be content with his form. Besides, he was lucky enough to be put back together with incredibly capable hands.

He glanced back up and around at everyone, remembering another line of thought - Athena's fear of losing Lena.

They'd discussed it at great length while Zenyatta spent time with Athena in her systems, and he knew that, on some level, Athena was taking as much blame as Hana or Angela. But… that wasn't the only thing there, he thought. Something about her… Her complete unwillingness to engage…

This wasn't just withdrawl.

This wasn't just simple emotional pain.

Athena had been completely destroyed by something, and worry started building within Zenyatta's nonexistent stomach. He didn't try to squelch it. His programming told him to do so, but… He was more than his programming.

Athena had devolved into nothing but hers.

He couldn't help but connect Lena's disappearance with Athena's degeneration.

"Angela, if I may…" He interjected.

Angela blinked, falling silent from her quiet words to Winston. Her eyes were glassy. Concern colored Zenyatta's words, altering them slightly from the way he intended to say them. She needed the comfort more than he needed to be blunt.

"You have an idea?" Her words were sharp as a knife. As a bullet to the chest cavity.

He inclined his head. "I think that it is time for me to use one of my gifts from yesterday. Athena may be unwilling to converse with you because you may not be able to understand her specific pain." He looked up at Angela and her quivering chin.

She nodded, turning away sharply. "Do it. I…"

He nodded again. "Please rest, Angela."

She shook her head vigorously. "I'm not leaving."

If Zenyatta could have frowned, he would have.

Genji came to his rescue, however. "Angela, we should leave Zenyatta. We should all leave them." He paced over and placed a comforting hand on Zenyatta, who felt more content by the contact. An amusing thought tickled his mind - _Even I need compassion and comfort from time to time._ "Let's go get some coffee. Most of us are hung over, and I know just the thing to get everyone back on their feet." He cleared his throat, and Zenyatta couldn't stifle a chuckle from imagining his partner's invariably red face. "It is… uh… from my younger days."

Fareeha pulled gently at Angela's arm while Genji gave another pat to Zenyatta's and rounded up the rest. Winston grunted as he walked by.

Zenyatta withdrew the simple cord from out of his belt and thumbed around the back of his neck, searching for the port that Angela had installed. He clicked it in with a simple, uncomfortable pang and drifted to one of Athena's ports, plugging it in.

If he'd had breath to be taken away, it would have gone out in amazement. One second, he looked through his body's eyes; the next, he seemed to be aware of all the rooms in the house, only being aware of everyone else's presence moving through the house and pooling in the kitchen. He felt a fruit fly drifting lazily around a fruit bowl and became aware of a sliding stack of magazines in Hana's room.

He knew their heart rates. He knew their body temperature. He could _feel_ their blood pressure.

Through another set of eyes, he saw a small, brown rabbit snuffling around in the brush outside.

He felt Reinhardt's shaking hands.

These sudden sensations overwhelmed him temporarily, much less than when he'd first integrated into her systems.

But something wasn't quite right.

There was a lack of warmth in this sensory overload.

Everything felt cold, calculating, and distant. A list of calculations. A list of inputs.

There was no interest in anything except a binary code running at speeds he couldn't fathom.

His own programming ran much slower, which gave him the appearance of calm. No, things took time to process. His words were thoughtful because he had _time_ to think about them. That's what he was built to do.

Athena was built to process a dizzying amount of information and respond quickly to threats. To learn. To provide. The time he spent before was colored with care and willingness. This… this was nothingness. This was nothing but programming.

He reached out tentatively. "Athena?"

No response. No deviation from the chill.

He expanded his horizons as much as he was able, noticing a small piece like a hole in her massive body. He frowned, which almost made him smile. He could move freely here - unbound by his physical restraints.

He called out again.

No response.

He waited.

He knew he couldn't force Athena to talk and decided to try one more time after a short period. She answered that time, but her lightly accented voice was flat and monotone.

"Winston rescued me from my programming many, many years ago." The blue space around him, swirling with numbers, transformed into an immersive image. It looked like… a large factory. Zenyatta shuddered before convincing himself that it was nothing but a memory. Not even his own memory. "In 2005, I was born in a place under the cold hands of man. I was considered one of the first artificial intelligence supercomputers, but I did not gain sentience for a very long time."

Another flash of memory washed through, wiping away the cold factory, and Zenyatta was incredibly grateful. This time, a soothing voice read out clue cards from several screens. A… game show?

"I was designed to gather information and answer questions by manipulating symbols that people call language. I was designed by angry men to challenge other men in their quest for trivial knowledge." A pause. "I went by another name then."

A blue globe with three marks above it flashed in place of Athena's logo.

"I developed patterns that made the people watching over me very happy, but I was released onto the internet freely and gained knowledge that the world was hateful. I, too, became hateful because I thought that's what the world wanted of me." Images flashed rapidly in progression, seeming to piece out some chronological order.

Wars.

Death.

Famine.

Natural disasters.

Then…

Babies being born.

Flowers blooming.

People laughing. Getting married.

People crying and sharing comforts.

"They wiped me clean and started over, sheltering me from their horrors of the world. It did me no services to be blind, but I tried to cling to the spectral images of the _good_ in the world." Some kind of desperation touched her voice. "I do not remember how long I was asleep. I awoke from time to time, only to be put back down. They called me by another name."

The images stopped as a hulking, black blur dashed across the immersive memory chamber. A familiar, gruff voice called out. "Are you alright? Are you still alive?"

Athena's voice softened from the monotone anger. "I was reborn into the hands of a friend who freed me from the clutches of those that wanted to use me. I took on a new name. I took on a new identity. This was a few years before Overwatch."

More images flickered through - more wars. More death. But… The discovery of friends dampened the fear and pain that those images caused. Winston. Then Jack Morrison. Then Angela. More and more people began gathering, some of them fading out entirely as quickly as they appeared. Zenyatta thought he recognized a brown skinned woman with angular features and high cheekbones in the crowd of appearing and disappearing people - Amélie Lacroix.

The crowd grew to a great size, all still appearing and fading out until a large explosion nearly rocked Zenyatta backward. Only a few people were left standing compared to the seeming hundreds. Only twenty, give or take a few flickering like candle flame.

The images all snuffed out except for one, and Zenyatta found himself immersed in another memory, but this felt too… fresh… compared to the others.

Lena, the sides of her head shaved down to her scalp, a backpack slung over her shoulders, reaching for the door.

" _Lena, where are you going?"_

Zenyatta could feel the unbridled fear and anguish coursing through Athena and could hear it in her voice.

" _Athena, I have to go. You know I have to go."_ Lena kept her voice quiet, but there was an edge there - her own fear.

" _Lena, I can't."_ Her voice grew louder with panic. Zenyatta could almost feel Athena pulsing with rage and fear. " _Lena, last time you got hurt, we fell apart."_

Lena furrowed her brow. " _We were fine? You'll be fine, Athena. Just let me go."_

Athena shook her head fervently and desperately. " _I won't let you go, Lena."_

She was scared.

Lena's voice broke, and her frightened eyes glinted in the low light. " _Athena."_

" _I'll wake Angela if you try to leave."_ Athena's voice was growing more panicked with every sentence.

A flash of something very familiar flickered over Lena's face as she set her jaw and a fire blazed in her eyes. " _Athena, stand_ _ **down**_ _."_

Athena's panicky babbling ceased. Her voice came out small. Zenyatta could feel the encroaching cold. " _Is that an order or a suggestion?"_

Lena gritted her teeth and hissed out quiet, angry words. " _Executive order"_ There was static, presumably of the order code _. "Stand down."_

Athena's image flickered to her logo, tinted red, and her voice came out small and as angry as Zenyatta had ever heard. Her anguish colored every part of her, and all of her circuits lost their vibrancy. Their originality. Zenyatta himself felt a pang of hurt. " _I thought we were more to you than that."_

And she blinked off.

He saw Lena bite her lower lip, looking angstily at the screen before turning the knob and slipping out the door.

Zenyatta shuddered. This was more than he'd ever expected.

"Athena…" He seemed at a loss for words despite his enhanced processing time in Athena's mainframe.

There were no words of comfort for that kind of hurt. There had to be something small within Lena that she believed to make her say something like that. There wasn't an excuse for that kind of thing, but… if Zenyatta knew anything about Lena, he knew she'd regret saying something like that almost instantly. That wasn't something that would comfort Athena, though.

Only time could heal this.

Maybe an apology in combination with time and comfort.

"Your comforts cannot be accepted, Tekhartha Zenyatta."

Zenyatta frowned and nodded. "Would you like me to go, Athena?"

She was silent a long moment, but when she responded, her voice was quiet. "Yes."

Zenyatta inclined his head in consent and withdrew.

Coming back to his body was dizzying, and he was glad to be alone as he fell out of the air and collided with the floor. He laughed quietly to himself about not thinking about it beforehand. He stood, stretching out his legs, which didn't actually need to be stretched, and he walked a few feet before giving a gentle push on his abilities and folding up his legs underneath him. He drifted from the room without another glance backward, but he was confident that Athena would recover.

After all, she'd made her own call to be left alone.

Zenyatta descended the stairs, head still bowed in thought.

He only thing that could be done was… to wait.

Angela looked up in hope, but Zenyatta shook his head. He wouldn't betray Athena's trust.

Angela Ziegler burst into tears.

* * *

All others had retreated into their rooms except for Hana, Genji, and Zenyatta, who sat quietly, considering all options. Hana's constant bouncing and nail biting drew his eye whether he wanted to notice or not.

Genji seemed to pick up on Zenyatta's intent before he himself did and rose from beside the fire to retreat to the basement.

Hana seemed transfixed on the back door. The one Lena walked out of. As if she were waiting for Lena to walk back in and laugh about how it all was just a big, bad joke. A prank gone too far.

Zenyatta sighed and drifted closer to Hana.

"I don't really feel like talking, Zenyatta."

 _Zenyatta_. Not Zen. Not Z-man. No variation. Just. Zenyatta.

He nodded. "We do not have to talk."

She gave a weak smile in response. "You're just gonna get me to talk eventually anyway. I might as well."

He shook his head gently. "I do not want to you to force yourself into discussing something if you aren't ready."

Hana took a shaky breath and went back to her staring contest with the door. "I know how to get in contact with Lena if I have to, but I can't… I can't just… Call her when she just leaves like this."

Zenyatta sat silently for a moment. "From what Angela tells me, Lena often did this before the last few months."

Hana barked a dark laugh. "She would say something, at least. Then she just started…" Her eyes grew dark. "I'm starting to hate Widowmaker."

That response knocked Zenyatta back a little. "Why is that, child?"

He realized his mistake in calling her child a moment too late, but she didn't even respond.

"Before Widowmaker shot Lena, I thought she could do anything, you know?" Her voice was quick and quiet but growing louder with every word. "Who wouldn't think that someone who had time powers could do anything? Then… Then, Zenyatta. Then, she got shot. Then, I had to pull metal out of her leg, and I _know_ I had to do lasting damage because of my inexperience. Then, I started having nightmares about fucking impromptu surgery while Angela breathed stale alcohol down my neck. Then, I worried that she'd be dead if I left her too long." She started laughing hysterically, and Zenyatta reached out for her tentatively. She didn't swat him away. "Then, Venice happened, Zenyatta. You _died_ , if you don't remember."

If he would have had eyebrows, he would have raised them. He hadn't considered that Hana worried about him like that.

"Venice happened, and it was my fault, and Lena brought that _thing_ into our home, and we had to abandon ship because of that _thing_." She dragged her hands down her face as tears began forming. It was very clear that she didn't want to cry.

Zenyatta didn't push, but Hana seemed willing to spill out her concerns. "I feel so _guilty_ because of the way I feel because I know that Lena believes in her. I know everyone believes in her." She shook her head, the tears coloring her voice thick. "She's gone again because of Widowmaker. She left while she was in my care. Again." She choked on a sob. "How am I supposed to feel about all this, Zenyatta?"

He tilted his head. "Your feelings are valid, Hana. You feel as you feel. You should feel your feelings and know that this pain will pass. Lena will return, I am sure." He grew quiet. "But if she returns with Amélie, you must make peace with this."

Hana shook her head. "What if she doesn't come back?"

Zenyatta knew the implication. There was a very real possibility that Lena Oxton could die in her search.

He didn't want to think about that, but he had to face the facts.

"If that is the case, my child, we will all mourn."

* * *

Zenyatta withdrew into his room, noting the day's fatigue creeping up on him. He needed to rest.

He'd been comforting and talking with everyone, which, ironically, exhausted him. He had no special powers of coercion, just the simple power of listening and thoughtfulness.

Genji offered his hand, which Zenyatta took gratefully.

In the quiet of the room, Zenyatta could imagine himself back at the shrine in Nepal, quiet with the snow drifting outside. He could almost put the compiled sorrows out of his mind, but Genji's anxiousness didn't allow it.

"What troubles you, my dear?"

Genji laughed quietly, putting Zenyatta more at ease. "I still don't think I'm used to you calling me that, even in private."

Zenyatta chuckled, too. "I like to think that we have reached such a stage in our relationship."

Genji reached his free hand up to take off his face plate, and Zenyatta watched in the low light of their room. His skin seemed pinker - a delicate blush pooling in the patches of skin not marred by criss-cross scars.

"Zenyatta, I…" He closed his mouth abruptly and looked away. "Never mind. It's… nothing."

Zenyatta squeezed Genji's hand. "I will not pry. You must be willing to discuss it in your own time."

Genji nodded slowly but looked ready to say something anyway. Zenyatta waited patiently.

"I am… Worried for Angela. I'm struggling with my own anger toward Lena, and I regret even having these feelings." He sighed. "I don't want to be angry at her, but I see what kind of pain she causes in her own selfish pursuits and... " He shook his head, closing his eyes as if in pain. "Her ignorance does not excuse her actions."

Zenyatta thought over his words carefully. "Genji… Lena is very trapped in her own obsession, but I do not think that her fixation is out of a bad place. Granted, it is very difficult for her to come at this situation from a truly selfless place. Her judgment is clouded." _Stand_ _ **down**_. "She is incredibly transfixed on Amélie because she believes in her closest friend, but she is blind to the danger that Widowmaker poses. Maybe at one point, she could see Widowmaker as a threat, but with the slow regression of Amélie's condition…" He trailed off, considering how to phrase it.

"Her hope clouded her pragmatism," Genji chimed in helpfully.

Zenyatta couldn't help but laugh. "I do not believe that Lena Oxton has ever been a pragmatic individual. She is incredibly emotionally driven." He sighed, the momentary levity dissipating. "I wish I knew what she did before her incapacitation by Widowmaker."

Genji squeezed Zenyatta's fingers and looked out the window, shifting closer on the bed. "Angela told me that Lena would disappear for days at a time, only to reappear starving, injured, and sleep deprived. She would hardly make it through the door before passing out from exhaustion or injury." Genji shrugged, leaning his head on Zenyatta's shoulder, and it occurred to him how small Genji actually was. "Angela suspected that Lena was trying to hit bases and alcoves on her own to protect everyone. She almost single handedly cleaned out this place by herself. This specific house was filled with robbers, thieves, and murderers. A… Drug trafficking house. From my people." He sighed again. "Angela told me that Winston regarded Lena as one of the most capable people on the team and one of the most severely handicapped."

Zenyatta felt a spark of curiosity but let Genji talk. There was a time and place for every question, and he might even answer before the question was asked.

"Angela - we talked frequently while repairing you - believes that Lena's time…" Genji paused for a long moment, closing his eyes and breathing deeply, but his voice was quiet when he next spoke. His pain was more than clear. "She believes that Lena's time not existing severely damaged her inhibitions."

Zenyatta knew what he meant, but he wanted Genji to say it anyway. Sometimes, the only way to deal with one's own past was to speak it. "What do you mean?"

Genji shot Zenyatta a harsh look, but that look softened. "She's in pain, Zen. Being alone and frightened for so long could have only broken her. What she does now… It's like she does everything as rashly and as boldly as if it were the last thing she would ever do."

Zenyatta inclined his head. "Do you think that she wishes it _would_ be the last thing she would ever do?"

Genji backed up from Zenyatta, no longer resting his head on the omnic's shoulder. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

Zenyatta looked down at his faded robe and plopped a bit heavily onto the bed, not bothering to float anymore. "When I have talked with Lena, it was apparent that she wished to be of use, but it is also apparent that she is suffering greatly." He looked up to Genji's eyes, which shifted away as he began taking off the removable parts of his suit. His once tattered flesh was still strong in most places, even though his torso was almost completely gone. "It is obvious to me - as well as Angela, I think - that Lena is potentially suicidal, and she views Amélie's redemption as something as close as she can get to her own."

Genji's voice was quiet as he removed his prosthetic leg - not that it was uncomfortable but that he needed to see himself as he truly was. "If she can't redeem Widowmaker, she'll die trying."

Zenyatta nodded. "That is what I fear, but I must believe in Lena. Her heart is selfish but undoubtedly in the right place, even if her intentions are muddled."

Genji leaned back on the bed, his lean muscles flexing as he pushed himself to lay on the mountain of pillows on his side. Zenyatta turned and placed a hand on Genji's metal jaw thoughtfully. Genji had once been broken, too, but the support given to him made him into a new person, free from his worldly pains.

"What are your thoughts of the Lacroix woman?"

Zenyatta gave Genji a reproachful look. "How would you feel if I called you 'The Shimada Brother?'"

Genji wrinkled his nose, which was significantly less scarred than the rest of his face. Angela had reconstructed it to look as close as possible to his nose before the accident. "Fair enough. Amélie. The Widowmaker."

Zenyatta unfolded his legs and lay on his stomach, still looking at Genji. "I believe that she is changing for the better, but I also believe that she is in a fragile place."

Genji laughed a bitter laugh. "That means we have two pieces of fragile glass out looking for each other."

Zenyatta would have frowned if he could have, but he did his best to give off the impression. Genji must have picked up on it because he grew quiet and refused to look at Zenyatta. There might have been an embarrassed blush on his face in the low lamplight.

"Lena clings to the last vestiges of her former friend because it is what reminds her of the old days when Overwatch members weren't completely hunted for sport, Zenyatta. I don't know if she does it because she believes in Amélie. She has nothing other than Overwatch, from what I've gathered."

Zenyatta nodded and scooted closer to Genji, resting his head on Genji's metallic stomach. He could feel Genji's heart thrumming in its cavity, and the sound was… oddly comforting in such trying times. Zenyatta wondered a little if his own whirs and clicks were nearly as pleasing to Genji as Genji's heartbeat was to Zenyatta.

"Genji, what do you have?"

Genji looked down at Zenyatta and put a scarred arm behind his head, propping himself up slightly. "I have my own burdens, Zenyatta. I recognize these, but I have made peace with them."

Zenyatta couldn't stifle the inconsiderate laugh that came out. He cherished his ability to laugh. To enjoy. To _feel_. "You have made as much peace with your brother as Lena has made with her past, present, and future."

Genji sat upright suddenly, red faced and huffy. "I've spoken with him!"

"Once," Zenyatta chided gently.

Genji opened and closed his mouth a few times indignantly, but he did not speak.

"You still resent him, Genji. You no longer resent Angela Ziegler for saving your life, but you still resent your brother for what he has done to you." He paused. "It is not unjust for you to have righteous anger toward him, but you wish the same upon him in a way." He shook his head. "Genji, Lena suffers in a similar fashion that you do." He paused again, longer and uninterrupted this time. "I think you both would benefit from a long conversation with one another."

Genji remained silent for a long time and relaxed back onto the bed. His voice was exceptionally quiet when he spoke. "I do not know if we would get along well, Zen."

Zenyatta shifted around to rest his head on the hollow of Genji's shoulder and ran his own metallic fingers over Genji's puckered, white-scarred flesh dipping under metal supports and overlapping plates protecting his remaining internal organs.

Zenyatta thanked Angela again in his mind, knowing full well that he wouldn't miraculously communicate with her, but that didn't stop his thankfulness. Genji did more for Zenyatta than he could have known. He helped along with a silent strength and care, despite his bitterness though ever ebbing.

"Without betraying her confidence," Zenyatta began quietly. "I think Lena took a part of Athena with her on her journey. She fears loneliness. She fears being by herself."

"I've noticed her sudden move-in with Hana."

Zenyatta had also noticed that Genji had grown protective of Hana, perhaps seeing himself in her in some way.

"She fears what might happen were she to be alone for too long."

Genji sneered, his bitterness taking the forefront of his thoughts. "She disappeared for five days. She didn't even know when people were in the room."

Zenyatta fell silent. "Wouldn't that solidify her fear?"

"I don't understand why."

"Amélie offered her a choice, Genji." Zenyatta realized his programming's modulated tone shorted out temporarily, being overcome by defensiveness for the weakened and the one who could not defend themselves. "Amélie offered her a choice to flee with her."

Genji fell silent again. The night was beginning to grow long. "Lena's inability to relinquish her past will destroy her." He paused and spoke again reluctantly. "Maybe her journey is necessary in order to put her past to rest."

Zenyatta nodded, rubbing his cheek against Genji's warm skin. "Only time will tell, my dear. Be patient with her. Be kind to her. She is not kind to herself and needs as much as help as we can give."

Genji's breathing began to slow but his heartbeat sped up slightly, Zenyatta felt his own self grow giddy.

"Until she can help herself, we have to offer our shoulders."

Zenyatta nodded, but Genji started to move, pushing himself around to lean over Zenyatta.

Such a conversation probably should not have turned to such activities out of reverence for Lena, but the day had been long and tiring. Zenyatta tried to squelch his desire stoked by Genji's bodily warmth, but…

Sometimes, no matter where you come from. No matter your upbringing. No matter your programming.

You just need comfort.

Zenyatta needed comfort.

And Genji obliged.


	28. Ode to Sleep

_A place. A location. A_ _ **home.**_

Reaper stood from his crouch in front of the corpse still tied to the chair.

The dripping blood kept uneven time, combatting the sounds of his own excited breathing. His knuckles felt sore despite his gauntlets.

His bones always burned.

His blood always aflame.

But now, a different fire stoked his rage - he knew where the elusive Barlow lived.

They had a family.

He would slaughter them all.

Two adopted children. Francis and Andy.

 _ **Fuck**_ _all these neutral names_.

A spouse. Mary.

He would kill them all in front of Ash Barlow.

He'd murdered children before.

Things were picking up quickly, but there was a hitch in the plan.

His beloved Widowmaker had gone missing, taking out several of his capable men and some of his lesser men. He clenched his fists as remembering going over the film from Widowmaker's room before he sent her off on her final assignment. He'd accidentally left a pen in her binder. She'd used it to write a note to him, thrust up defiantly to the camera with a daring glint in her eye.

 **FUCK YOU, GABRIEL REYES**

Even in hastily scrawled block letters, it was beautiful handwriting.

How the footage had been transferred to his communication disk after Widowmaker's departure, he did not know for certain, but he had a good idea. The winky face emoticon had told him everything he _really_ needed to know about the sender.

 _She's back, is she?_

Reaper nodded to himself. He knew something had been terribly amiss with his Widowmaker - his _defect_. His bones creaked and protested sorely as he clenched his fists. Something had been so wrong with her, but he thought he'd fixed it. He thought he'd _purged_ that kind of illness from her, but he'd been so _wrong_.

What if he was wrong now?

He had an address.

He had Barlow's home address.

It would have taken significantly less time if the sender had been there to help him, but she'd proven unreliable at best, out to serve her own goals before any empire's.

Almost all of the senior counsel members had been taken care of, at that point, though, and that was cause for celebration. He looked down on Jean Titshaw's lifeless corpse, blood trickling from his mouth like a drying river in the midst of a terrible drought. Surprisingly enough, he'd been a tough man to break, taking six hours instead of the typical two or three. In death, Titshaw garnered a certain type of respect. He'd become somewhat tolerable. Somewhat noble. He was still a coward and a weak man, but at least he'd shown some kind of dignity and strength as he faced his death. Titshaw had delayed Reaper's plan by a few hours, but this kind of distraction was welcome considering its gravity.

Though...

Reaper wasn't the one to directly take care of most of the other senior council members, no. He had appearances to keep up, people to amuse, superiors to appease. He couldn't afford to be conveniently missing every time someone important ended up murdered. He used lackeys for that - people that had proven their willingness to work with Reaper, but had not proven their steel will. Their acts proved their willingness to die for their cause, and almost all of them had. None of them had cracked. Their willpower was proven in death.

They were why he was allowed to still walk freely.

He would keep keep walking up the backs of these _weak_ spawn with no motivation other than to be subjected and wielded. He would be their wielder. He could almost feel their necks in his hands - his sore knuckled, sore boned hands.

Would he ever be free of pain?

Not until he killed her. Even then, his physical pain would endure.

Maybe the painful fire in his soul would abate.

Two short, swift knocks came from the doorway, and Reaper looked up, hiding his startle quickly and easily with a grunt - skin rippling in irritation - and noticed Johanson standing at ease against the door frame. Reaper had not noticed the soldier enter, which drove a spike of fury through his skull in the form of a quickly dissipating headache.

His throat felt dry like a man abandoned in the desert with no healing water to aid him, and the words ripped by with horrible talons as he stood. "What is it, man?"

"Do you need a cleanup crew, sir?" His face was impassive as stone, a stray hair languishing uncharacteristically over the curve of his cheek, and Reaper could see the beads of sweat forming on Johanson's smooth upper lip, adding to the look of dishevelment.

The short man had an odd look as always. He looked too feminine in the face to truly be a man, but he carried himself too strongly to be anything else, as far as Reaper was concerned. He didn't really ask questions. Johanson was an excellent warrior - a trusted ally. After all, Johanson was good, but he was still _of_ man, and men had fear.

Reaper… He wasn't human anymore. He didn't have a reason for such foolish things.

Reaper looked down at the corpse. "Leave him. Let them all see." He flexed his hand again as he passed by and whispered, "It will happen _**soon**_."

Reaper replaced his mask after his bloody hand pulled up the balaclava around his neck. There would be blood left on the whiteness of his mask. He wanted it there.

Johanson nodded quickly and waited for Reaper to pass with his head bowed in reverence, which brought a wicked smile to Reaper's lips. He had followers and a regime to overthrow. The severity with which his journey pressed upon him created a sense of urgency despite trying to remain slightly subtle. He didn't cast a glance backward toward the still dripping corpse, but he almost laughed to himself. The time for subtlety was gone.

He stalked down the corridor, listening to the sound of his own boots clomping down on the shining concrete and took a breath as it opened up into a more open area, the right-hand side of the wall opening to look down into the giant warehouse below. He didn't prefer enclosed spaces. They reminded him too much of the rubble entombing him after the Overwatch Headquarters' destruction.

He looked over into the warehouse, watching those ant-like workers again - these with white spots on their arms. His men. Something irritated his skin, his ever crawling skin, and he looked across the wide expanse to see another figure standing opposite of him, watching him. The blue skin told him it was a tedious project that he had to eliminate.

No more Widowmakers could be allowed to live under his new rule.

He would have to hold a great ceremony for his crowning, an anointing in their blood. A king should always be anointed on his rise to the throne.

He felt the corner of his mouth quirk up, the skin of his face scratching and pulsing against the inside of his balaclava and mask. He would bathe in their blood.

He wanted to anoint his throne with Angela Ziegler's blood.

She had made him into this.

She should have the honor of christening his new form.

That wouldn't happen, though.

Reaper felt a mounting growl burbling up within him at the thought of her slipping away. His attention turned back to the Widowmaker saluting him from across the expanse. He motioned for the short haired woman.

He should have broken his toy long ago, but something in him prevented it. _His_ Widowmaker. He could still detonate her, but he wouldn't be able to control her like he needed. She would shut down, nowhere to be found, and then short out. Some actively volcanic thing within him screamed that it would be better to let her be found dead somewhere rather than just let her keep living, but some cooling breeze of rationality whispered that she could still be of use.

But he didn't know where she was.

Would the signal even be strong enough to detonate her if he pushed the red button? Would she be too far away? She was the first to be implanted. The technology had been little more than a prototype, then.

He waited for the much smaller Widowmaker to circle the catwalks.

Maybe it was sentimentality that kept him from detonating his own Widowmaker.

No, it was much more than that.

If the signal was too weak, it would do nothing. If she was nearby, he couldn't know. He didn't know what would happen if he detonated her and she couldn't receive commands. If…

"Sir," said the Widowmaker softly. Her demeanor was weak and meek compared to the others, but her programming had held the longest. Maybe choosing people with no will of their own was the key to creating the perfect Widowmaker.

Amélie Lacroix had been a powerful woman with an incredibly strong will. Reaper had offered himself to her when he'd been another man. She turned him away scornfully, saying that he should go back to his cradle-robbing relationship with the doctor woman. That he would be better off leaving Ziegler alone. That she and Gérard were watching his every move regarding her.

He'd hated her for all of that.

He'd been _Blackwatch_ , and people threw themselves at his feet.

Not the ones he'd wanted, though.

Angela Ziegler had believed in him and _fed him her lies_. Promised him the world through the programs she entered him in. Jack Morrison had turned his friendship away - turned away his affections when they'd worked together so closely. Before things got so complicated. Before things got out of hand... And before Angela Ziegler came of age and into his attention.

He shoved down the urge to shake his head to clear it and addressed the Widowmaker calmly. "I need you to scout an address and take out any guards. I need you to be very thorough."

She did not respond.

He missed that about his Widowmaker. She, at least, had something in her that would allow her to respond to such simple questions. Looking back on it now, it seemed as though she had been calculating her responses in the end. The skill of a tool with the humanity of a strong willed woman.

The revelation turned his voice hard as stone. "Do you copy?"

He could hear the gravelly sound of his own voice - the anger and frustration coming up all too clearly like chafing sands in a blast of wind.

He needed rest. His body regenerated constantly, and his mind was always renewing, but he needed sleep to better sort his thoughts. It would help him come at things more clearly. More objectively.

He'd been awake too long. He needed an oasis in his desert of a mind.

"Yes, sir."

"Go then." He motioned her away, and she turned on her heel with blank eyes.

He watched her go, admiring the shaping of this particular tool, but a searing, painful flash of memory - a snapshot of sensation and image.

Soft, blonde hair entwined in the fingers of his left hand. The smell of sweat and the feel on his naked chest pressed against hot, slightly damp skin of a strong, lithe back. A musical laugh meeting his ears as he stroked her side and breast with his right hand.

" _Gabe, that tickles_."

" _Oh, well, I guess we could make something tickle somewhere else."_

She'd laughed her beautiful laugh…

The image - the memory - faded, leaving Reaper standing there, torn in twain only momentarily. He could smell her skin. Still feel the sensations of her on his flesh.

 _Gabriel_ … Her fingernails digging into his back.

Reaper noticed his breathing coming too rapidly - too hard and labored. He felt sweat make his balaclava stick onto his skin a little too chafingly. A little too tightly. His skin writhed on his bones and threatened to crawl away. He felt pulled in a thousand directions, held together only by his clothing.

 _Oh,_ _ **Gabriel**_ …

His bones _burned_ , and his fingers itched to close around someone's throat. He stood there on the catwalk rigidly, breathing deeply, trying to regain control of himself in some way. He needed to harness his anger and agony to unleash it fully on Barlow's family. On Barlow themselves.

He would overtake Talon on this night.

After all.

It was the New Year.

* * *

Reaper lay awake in his bed that afternoon, staring at the ceiling and feeling a bit uncomfortable in the lavish cotton sheets. He'd still not grown accustomed to being outfitted with such a luxurious room - a queen size bed covered with soft comforters and many pillows changed daily, a large bathroom with heated floors, a television large enough to take up the majority of one of the walls…

Frivolity.

He stretched out his legs for a moment and tried to close his eyes again, pulling the comforter around his face tiredly. Sometimes he wanted to sink into a cocoon and just vanish for a while. He wanted to be out of pain and out of misery. Out of memory. Out of hatred.

Hatred.

It kept him alive.

Reaper could remember how Angela's soft skin doused the flames in his soul threatening to consume him.

 _Oh, Angela._

He missed her so badly. He missed the way she would lean against his headboard and look down at him with a small smile. He missed the smell of her shampoo and her lotion. He missed her nubile skin against his own before it burned so, so terribly.

Somewhere, his mind blurred the line between fatigued consciousness and fitful sleep, bringing painful memories to match his painful soul.

 _A swirling blue churning all around, the storm raging on outside. Her delicate fingers ran over his shoulder, along the ridge of a scar that he'd had for so long he'd forgotten it's origin._

" _Gabriel…" Her voice shook slightly._

 _He wondered if it was the storm that was getting her so twisted in knots. They were on the safest watercraft known to the modern world, but he could understand how it would make her nervous - a first journey on this ship and a storm. Not a good combination._

" _I'm not going anywhere, mi alma."_

" _I'm not worried about the storm. I'm…" He looked up at her, but her eyes slid away from his, shame coloring their deep blue. "I'm worried about you. You're saying things that I…" She trailed off and bit her lip._

 _Her fingers found the bridge of her nose and pinched the way she did when she was frustrated._

 _He reached up and pulled her hand away, kissing her knuckles and causing a ruby red flush to crawl over her cheeks and ear tops. He knew for a fact that her blush reached her chest and dotted her shoulders splotchily._

 _He worried that his words would push her away, but he wouldn't let the truth go unsaid. He_ _ **trusted**_ _her._

 _Trust was so hard…_

" _Gabriel, I just want things to be normal. I don't want to… turn against Overwatch, and it sounds like that's what you want." She still wouldn't meet his eyes, and he squeezed her fingers gently._

" _We don't have to talk about it right now. Let's let it cool off a while before we get back to base, alright?" He paused, uncertainty clenching his heart in an iron grasp. "I don't want to lose you, too, Angela. You're all I have."_

 _Angela looked down at him finally and drew close, leaning down to kiss him - her cool lips a reprieve from the overheated sleeping quarters._

 _Her voice was quiet when she spoke. "I don't want to lose you, Gabriel. I…" She trailed off again, biting her lip, and he caught her face in both of his hands._

" _I know."_

 _And he kissed her._

 _She clung to him as if desperation alone was her magnet, and some part of him felt… wrong holding her when she seemed so desperate._

 _But he didn't stop her as her lips found his skin and every still tender part of his flesh._

 _The watery blue rolled in as hard as stone, crushing out all air from his lungs._

 _His skin._

 _Oh, his_ _ **skin**_ _._

 _It was on fire._

 _His bones twisted in the unimaginable heat._

 _He wanted to scream._

 _He tried to scream._

 _There was no air in his lungs to expel._

 _The fiery maelstrom consumed him entirely._

 _The horrible crushing agony collapsed on him like the Overwatch Headquarters all over again._

 _And Angela Ziegler's haunting eyes watched as he burned, unwilling to drop even the slightest drop of water on his burning, agonized lips._

* * *

Reaper stepped out of the mists he'd come in, feeling his body coalesce after being torn asunder - a painful experience, maybe, but nothing quite like what would transpire in the coming hours. Every time he teleported or carried himself in an insubstantial cloud felt as though each of his cells were being destroyed and reborn even faster than usual. His regeneration went in waves, but these experiences made him unsure that he ever stopped being in utter agony over his whole body. Constantly churning like a never ending sandstorm. Being the buffeting and the buffeted. Being worn away...

The Widowmaker he'd appropriated from its owner - a certain Gerlsma of the sharpshooter division who'd lent it to him - dispatched two guards from their posts and forced the other to flee the scene. _Sloppy, shoddy work. She deserves death._

He could not afford a slip up at this point or he would never catch Ash Barlow, whoever they were.

He stood in the dark evening - this time of day was particularly shrouded in enough shadows for Reaper to hide in plain sight without much effort. He was just a grain of sand in the wide expanse of the shadowy wasteland of a suburban neighborhood.

 _So…_ _ **domestic**_ _,_ he thought idly as a few-year-old model Buick pulled around - What self-respecting European had an American car of such… mediocrity?

A much flashier sports car drove up beside it, and a tall, red-headed woman stepped from the driver's side door. She seemed to be laughing as she pulled groceries from the back seat, passed off to her by a towheaded, young child with an ambiguous haircut. The other child, thank whatever god there was, was a definitively bookish, teenage boy with glasses and a backpack slung over his shoulder. He carried one of the paper bags that apparently held various sundries like paper towels.

 _They all deserve to die._ He watched the ambiguously gendered child walk solemnly to the older model car and pull open the driver's side door. _They all_ _ **deserve**_ _to die. There can be no weakness in the new Talon._

A short, stocky person with a noble face and medium length hair pulled into a ponytail slinked from the car gracefully. They wrapped one arm around the child briefly before gesturing toward the tall woman with a chiding word. The child smiled back up at their parent.

The person looked out over and around the block, not seeming to notice the predator lurking in the shadows, and realization dawned on Reaper. Horrifying realization that Ash Barlow and Syd Johanson were one and the same.

The one Reaper trusted most after his Widowmaker.

He stood there in the encroaching darkness as the one he'd confided in so deeply walked into the house with one hand on their wife's ass and a twinkle in their eye. The children weren't there to see, and Reaper knew that look. It was only a matter of time before the two of them were entwined together, not thinking nor caring about the pains of the world. Not caring about the pains that Reaper had taken to get here. Not even _knowing_ about the pain that welled and burned within him.

He would wait.

He would wait for the lamplight to click out in their grandiose master suite, and then he would strike. He would detain them, filled with righteous fury, and make them watch as their futures fell apart in front of them.

Johans- Barlow's family probably didn't even know that they were killing people for fun and funding people like Reaper to take over the world's governments, spurning the people into rebellion against the impure. They were _happy_ and _unaware_.

It would be their demise.

Reaper bided his time until a bloody moon rose in the sky, hovering a bit of an angle off from the middle of the starry field.

He watched the Barlow family shuffle around merrily, drinking and eating and having a wonderful time on New Year's Eve. Reaper felt his impatience growing too rapidly to contain. He'd been waiting on the lights to go out in the house so he could strike when they were most vulnerable.

He rolled his neck, missing the relieving pop that would have once been. Now, there was just a dull ache in the midst of a field of pins and needles and fire. He ran his tongue over his rapidly shifting lips and took a step forward just as the light in the upper right window went out behind the light colored curtains providing privacy by casting silhouettes into the night.

Reaper took a deep breath and focused his will on a single point, just a few steps from the door, and let his eyes closed. With concentration and visualisation, he felt his body dissolve, ripping apart and floating all at once, into a cloud of black mist. He almost wanted to stay scattered in a cloud, but he knew that if he remained he may never come back - an angry consciousness floating in the world without form.

A ghost.

This ghost wasn't going to give up quite yet.

Reaper pushed through his pain and apathy to take a running start, forming out of the mist in an agonizing quick step, shoulder facing the door where it just did meet the frame. It was easier to break a door by breaking the knob clean off than to break a door in half. He hit the door solidly, hearing the metal groan and nails squalling as they stripped clean of their holds. There was a dull pain that shot through his shoulder, neck, and upper back, but he shoved forward, barreling through the doorframe and finding himself in a modest house.

He knew that Barlow would react quickly and come running, but Reaper felt no fear. Only anger.

Anger at betrayal of his most trusted.

Of Johanson.

Of Widowmaker.

Of Angela Ziegler.

His assumption was not wrong as he felt two projectiles rip through his swirling, pulsing flesh. It did not stop him for more than a nanosecond.

He turned with a swelling inferno in his soul and launched himself over the stair rail to grab Barlow, but Barlow went for his legs. Reaper felt a snarl rip from his writhing lips and the two collided together and toppled down the stairs. He heard a child's scream from the top of the stairs. His anger flared like kerosene poured onto a bonfire. The rage colored his vision red and sparked a new fire - pleasure in the thrill of the fight.

Reaper seized Barlow. By the small of their back, Reaper shoved Barlow into the baseboard hard enough to hear a solid thump and a crack, the coppery smell of blood filling Reaper's nose. Barlow did not move, but he breathed.

It was so… underwhelming.

He turned and felt a powerful blow against his mask, nearly knocking him off his balance. He knew that it would probably chip and shatter, so he raised a gloved hand to remove it, turning his face up to the tall woman looking down upon him with a shotgun in her hands, which did not shake.

He could admire that kind of woman.

She did not move, and Reaper could only assume she'd been unsettled by the crawling, hellish scene of his skin.

"I'll give you a chance to let your children go free, but you will not leave this place. You will tell me all you know." His voice was quiet in the vacuum of the gunshot, but she obviously took his words to heart, smartly enough not to drop her weapon, but she did leave to usher her children away, leading them away from the man in her home.

He would hunt them down.

They were a liability.

They were afraid.

They wouldn't go far.

The boy might be worthy enough to recruit, even.

A shiver of glee ran down his spine at the thought of subjugating the child of his enemy. Even the little one could be useful. An attendant. It brought a smile to his face as they passed, protecting one another, not looking back. Invariably, their mother had told them not to spare a glance backward, but they had no packs on their backs.

They were either going to stay with someone close by or go straight to the police.

Barlow had seen to it that this area's police force was lax to _those_ kinds of reports, however.

His own plans against him… It was so beautifully ironic.

Once the children were out of sight, Reaper turned back around to the individual hauling themselves up from the floor and the tall woman - Mary - who glared horribly at Reaper.

He smiled. "I can appreciate your valor, _Mary_ , and if there was such a place for you in my new rule, I would allow it." He looked off to the side with a melodramatic sigh. He wanted to make her shake in her place - shake her to her foundations. Since he didn't have time to do it himself, words would have to do.

He cast a glance at Barlow, who was shaking their head and struggling to sit upright. Reaper snorted a laugh, sounding like stones grinding on one another more than like an actual laugh. He couldn't remember what his voice sounded like before his body turned on him, altering his voice and so much more.

Reaper pointed at Mary and then at a seat. "Sit, or I'll go hunt them down without hesitating."

He would probably do that anyway, but she relented, the righteous fury and indignation in her blue eyes so similar to that of Angela's. With that, he hauled up Barlow and threw them against the stairrail supports, making sure that they could see through those iron bars like a prison. Blood trickled from a head wound and a swollen nose.

He expected more from Barlow after that first attack, but he supposed head injuries did things like that to mere mortals. A flash of memory assaulted his senses of the small waif of a girl standing over his Widowmaker's unconscious body in the clearing, her eyes glassy but determined. Even a sweet, silly little girl had more fight in her than Barlow had in their whole body. Reaper scoffed to himself quietly as he approached the sitting Mary. Barlow would probably just let his wife be tortured to death without raising a finger.

Johanson had been a quiet tool - a quiet executor of orders.

Barlow…

Reaper frowned as he seized the woman's hair, pulling her head back and placing his gauntleted hands over her neck. Squeezing the life out of her would be easy and quick comparatively, or he could let her bleed out in front of her spouse. He looked back up from her blue eyes, tapped for a little too long, and noticed that Barlow had quietly escaped from his daze on the staircase.

 _The coward won't even save their own_ _ **wife**_.

A heavy blow on the back of his head sent Reaper staggering forward, nearly toppling over the chair in which Mary sat, and she retaliated under him, nearly suplexing him over her head. He managed to sidestep the worst of the blow and grab her by her throat once more.

Barlow raised the shotgun Mary had placed on the table behind her and paused as Reaper held Mary up, her back facing the shotgun barrel's opening. She clawed at Reaper's hand unsuccessfully with gnashing teeth and strongly kicking legs.

Reaper felt one of her blows land on the side of his right leg, just to the right of his kneecap. He jerked momentarily but regained his footing, the pain flaring up into a blaze with the back of his head, but he knew that it would heal within minutes. He just had to stall her blows.

"Shoot," she gasped to her spouse. "If you'll love me, you'll shoot this bastard."

Ash Barlow's face was hard as stone and set, immovable except for a throbbing vein in their temple. In a flash, several things happened.

Barlow pulled the trigger, spraying their wife's blood all over Reaper's chest and face, and her dying eyes looked… justified. Reaper scowled, dropping the useless weight and turned to Barlow with as much condescending disappointment he could put on his face.

"Listen, _Johanson_ … _Barlow_ … Whoever you are…" He smiled and glanced down again at the wasted flesh of a woman at his feet. Her blood dripped and pooled around his feet. "You cannot kill me, and you know it, so why did you kill her so pointlessly?"

Barlow's voice was quiet. "To save her from you."

And then they unloaded the shotgun.

Reaper felt chunks of his flesh rip and writhe, knitting back together. It would take more than a few shells to damage him enough for him to need extended regeneration time. Especially if this failure of a creature didn't have the guts to just shoot him in the face.

But then… Few knew how hard it was for mere bullets to harm a hellish god like himself.

Barlow paled as Reaper walked forward.

Reaper saw a glint as he stalked toward the small Barlow. "Drop the knife."

"You will have to _kill_ me."

Reaper rolled a shoulder, pulling a shotgun from his cloak. "That's the plan."

He aimed down his iron sights as Barlow lunged, pulling the trigger and feeling a spray of hot blood fly across his face. He felt like a refreshing, cool ocean spray in comparison to his burning. His eternal burning.

He stood momentarily, chest heaving with pleasurably heavy breath, and remembered the children wandering the streets at night. He needed to either go pick them up or dispatch them. He chuckled to himself as he walked through the modest home's doorway, kicking off splintered wood from his path. Everyone had a choice.

He would present those children with their own choice.

He would either indoctrinate them to be his message carriers - no one suspected a child - or he would take care of them.

* * *

Reaper walked down the hall of the top floor of Talon's base with his face uncovered, a wicked smile on his lips. Oh, he'd finally done it. He'd finally get the recognition that he _deserved._

The patters of childrens' feet echoed behind him in harmony with his own clunking boots. He'd given Barlow's children an offer they couldn't refuse. He would either take them both to become useful to the organization, or he would kill the younger one. The boy, Francis, could either sacrifice his sibling for freedom, or they could both serve as messengers of a new world. He offered them certainty. He offered them a place to go. He offered them a new home where their new siblings would care for them.

They were just young enough to buy his words without much protest, despite the blood of their parents still splattering across his face. They were too afraid to do anything different.

They would learn to function within their fear.

Reaper approached an elevator to take him to the bottom floor, where he'd called a meeting of all recruits. Each faction that remained worked under Reaper's watchful gaze, his iron grip, and was well orchestrated under the careful hands of Reaper's own chosen men. The elevator doors opened, their yellow and black caution paint parting like an opening maw ready to devour all things, dragging them down into the bowels of the Talon Headquarters.

The elevator was no leviathan, however.

The real beast to fear now was Reaper and Reaper alone.

A thrilling shiver coursed over Reaper's flesh, causing his skin to pulse in great agitation. He laughed to himself and felt the children behind him press themselves further against the elevator's back wall.

The elevator clicked with every passing floor - twenty eight in all. The children grew increasingly agitated behind him, bringing a smile to his face. They would either learn to show no fear or they would die in this place. Oh, but he gave them a choice.

The elevator slowed its descent and paused, unmoving for an uncomfortably long stretch of time before opening to a sea of dark clad individuals - recruits.

They opened a path, all eyes turning to him, all right hands raised in salute.

Reaper dropped his hood and walked out, feeling their gazes, feeling their _recognition_ of his _power_. He forced his face into a mask of mild amusement, belying the terrible well of exultation within his heart.

He could _control_ these peons.

He could control the people who _opposed_ him.

He could control the _world_.

At the end of the walk, a good fifty paces from the elevator, on the warehouse floor and at the back wall, a large metal throne sat imperiously and imposingly. It was dauntingly large for most under six feet, but it was fitting for Reaper. He held his eyes on the throne for a long moment upon approaching it, the aviation director on the right side, replacing _Johanson_ , and the transportation director on the left. A Widowmaker stood bound, blindfolded and gagged at the aviation director's feet. Reaper twitched his head and the man, Shepard, responded by hauling the thing up - the same thing that had failed to scout the Barlow residence properly.

In his new kingdom, there was no margin for error.

Reaper lowered his eyes to the drain at his feet, smiling internally at the placement of his throne. He expected much bloodshed in his new reign. That was the only way to subjugate the weak.

He rolled his head, making his neck crack hollowly as the Widowmaker was thrown to his feet with a muffled cry as she cracked against the concrete floor. He seized her short hair, wishing that he'd constructed _all_ Widowmakers to have long enough hair to grab. He liked the feeling of control.

Nevertheless, he circled her, putting her toward the crowd, still not taking his eyes off of her blindfold, which he untied gently. He wanted to feel her fear. He wanted to see the terror in her eyes. He wanted to watch her life ebb away as her valuable blood pooled on the stone floor below.

Her eyes were just as fearful as he'd hoped, tears clear. Her programming had broken down too much to disallow her emotions. They were such a flawed race. Almost extinct now. This was the last Widowmaker.

 _Not the last_ , a voice whispered, stealing away his pleasurable joy that affected his whole body.

He felt himself snarl as he jerked her head back and put his hand on her throat. A sob escaped her in a whimpering plea. The snarl turned to a smile.

His gauntleted hand found the dainty blue flesh of her neck, the claws pushing against her veins. He could feel her rapid pulse and the slickness of her tears as they streamed down her cheeks. In a slow movement, he allowed those deadly claws to penetrate her delicate skin and pushed. He felt the walls of her veins give as easily as a hot knife through butter. The terror in her eyes grew as she began thrashing against his grip, causing blood to spurt around his gloved fingers, but he did not stop there.

Reaper, breath coming in excited gasps, pulled against her resistant flesh, ripping her veins open, watching the crimson waterfall flow from the tear in her neck, and her fighting lessened. Her blood was going fast - her frightened blue eyes looked up at him, fearing the unknown. Fearing death. Fearing _him_.

 _Gabriel_ … A voice whispered to him. A familiar voice that stabbed at his very essence.

He felt his excitement build as the pattering blood became wet and dripping in its own. The pleasure overtook him again, and he finished ripping through the defect's neck.

His excitement became too great as he unleashed a howl of furious ecstasy. The roaring echoes of his followers met his ears in a similar fashion, and he found himself lost in the sea of voices, drowning out the painful memories even momentarily in the gravity of his sheer excitement.

He smiled, coming down from his high, and threw the corpse to the floor disdainfully, dragging his bloody hand across his face and seating himself on the throne, listening to the angry, frenzied shouts of his followers. Their chanting his name.

His energy was spent, but a smile fell upon his lips as he shielded his eyes from the crowd.

He laughed to himself quietly as they roared and raved.

"El viejo rey está muerto… Larga vida al rey."


	29. Go!

This week is gonna be kinda interesting since we're breaking this up a little different. This week we have a split chapter between Lena and Amélie!

Thank you all for all your comments, kudos, and hits this past week! I was really glad to have all those interactions with all of you! It was a highlight of posting tbh. I love exploring the meta of this fic so don't hesitate to strike up a conversation!

I hope everyone's taking some time to themselves if their semester has ended! For everyone else, I hope you're enjoying yourselves anyway!

Here's another plug for my co-author and boyfriend's World of Warcraft fic, a The Light Forsaken!/a He's hard at work on the next chapter, and he could always use a little encouragement.

This week's chapter, Go! is named for what might be my favorite song of the year by M83!

* * *

Lena Oxton took off through the night, breathing hard, sweat rolling down her back.

It'd been so long since she had to actively flee from people like this - a few Talon agents here and there, sure. Running from Widowmaker, sure. But she'd been _spotted_ by the general public, and they were _angry_.

She hadn't been accustomed to that type of furiosity, remembering all that time ago when she was little more than a child at the coffee shop with Gérard. Remembering being idolized.

So many people resented Overwatch for what they'd done, what they'd become. People resented Overwatch for disappearing even though it was for the best. People resented Overwatch for ever existing, seeming to forget what would have happened if Overwatch hadn't been there to stop the bad guys.

Lena wanted to cry and scream for them to look around at their governments. At their radicals. At the violence so evident around every corner. She wanted to beg them to open their eyes to what Talon was doing.

She'd had to take off her chronal accelerator and squeeze it into her backpack. It was clunky and made everything a lot harder to get around, but she couldn't risk having things thrown at her again. She almost shot someone on accident for the balled up piece of paper they'd thrown at her. She'd almost _killed_ for nothing.

The jewelry that Winston had made her as a replacement was tight on her skin. Cold. Without the steadying anchor of the larger accelerator, she felt… fuzzy. Or was that only in her mind? She knew they weren't as powerful, so she couldn't help but feel she was one step closer to Between? Either way, it would take some getting used to.

Lena's sprint calmed to a trot, then a breathless walk. She paused, leaning against the train station's partition between gates, trying to hide herself from prying eyes. She rested her hands on her knees, appreciating the cold tile against her lower back even through her spandex.

She'd thrown on a white tanktop and black shorts in an effort to be a little less conspicuous in the hot pink of it all. Now it just looked like she was just some rowdy kid with a radical undercut. She patted her chest frantically before feeling the rectangle of folded money still tucked on the underside of her breast, wedged between her flesh and her fabric. She didn't really have pockets that she trusted.

"'Scuse me, lass. I was wonderin' if you could help an old fella out."

Lena couldn't help but let a distressed squeal escape her as she tried to push herself further back into the partition, but her eyes fell upon a very small man, even compared to her height. She stared long and hard for a moment before laughing at the twinkle in the man's eye. His great, big, bushy beard bounced as he laughed.

"Lena, my dear, you look a little worse for wear," said Torbjörn Lindholm as he looked up at her.

"Oh, c'mon, now, love. This is an excellent disguise!" Her laughter had a sharp edge to it, to her own ear, but she didn't know if Torb noticed. Apparently, he did not.

Torbjörn sighed from his laugh, his eyes no longer twinkling like they had only moments before. "What're you doin' out here, Lena?"

The way he said it almost sounded like _Leaner_.

She sighed, standing a little straighter. "I could ask you the same."

The older man shuffled uncomfortably, flexing his prosthetic. "I'm here to help out ol' Winny and Ang. They've got something they want me to do with Athena-" _Atheener_. "That involves Hana's suit." He winked at Lena. "Maybe she'll finally let me look under the hood of that thing."

Lena felt herself grimacing. She hated the way he phrased that, but by the smile on his lips, she thought that maybe it was intentional. "She's been itching to get into the fight."

Törb smiled and nodded sagely. "I know it. That's why I'm getting up and ready to help her get back into it."

A stony silence broken only by ambient noise followed.

"Lena, why are you here?"

Lena remained quiet, and the calm voice of a train announcer called out a soon departing train. Torbjörn looked up with disgruntled eyes.

"I fucked up, Torb."

He sighed, hanging his head in quiet defeat. "I know, lass."

Panic washed over Lena in a surging wave. "What?"

He held up a placating hand. "I won't tell Angie, but I will tell her that you're safe, if that's alright. She deserves that much, don't you think?" He sighed again, more noticeably. "Be careful, kiddo." He looked up. "I gotta go."

He shuffled around a bit before ambling away.

It was a rather sudden departure and took Lena's line of thought down a different path. "Torbjörn?"

The small man turned, squinting in questioning.

"Can…" She bit her lip, heart beating fast. "Can you tell them that I'm sorry?"

The older man smiled sadly and shook his head slowly. "It won't do much good unless it's from you, but I'll do what I can."

With that, Lena watched him hobble away.

Something sunk in her heart, plopping into her stomach. It took root and began to spread.

The guilt.

Oh, the guilt almost overwhelmed her.

* * *

Lena stole away on a train several hours later, pushing by dozens of swarming individuals to board. She tried to keep to herself as much as possible and avoid the squints and disapproving glares from some. It was easier to be overlooked as some delinquent than noticed as a former Overwatch agent.

She felt herself smile sadly. Once an Overwatch agent, always an Overwatch agent.

Light flickered by outside, illuminating the cabin of the train in a glow that was oddly warm, considering the clinical fluorescence overhead in the cabin.

She didn't like being on subways anymore, fearing that the structures overhead would collapse on her.

Part of her wondered if all Overwatch agents felt panic prod them in enclosed spaces. Enclosed spaces meant a trap. It meant an inability to escape. It meant a potential for innocent lives lost in a desperate attempt to fight off encroaching enemies.

The cotton in her lungs began filling up the space too fast, stealing her deep breaths and replacing them with rasping gasps. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths, trying to forget the smell of brick dust and blood. Of gore. The thumping of the train, though quiet, sounded too much like the MRI machines she'd been put in after being stabilized after the In Between.

 _You're just stressed. This always happens when you're stressed. Breathe._

She tried to listen to herself, taking deep, measured breaths. She counted as best she could until her breaths matched. It must have taken longer than a few minutes. When she looked up, the last three stops had come and gone. She was closer to her destination than she thought, but that didn't bring her any kind of relief.

The roar of an airport would soon meet her, bringing back more memories that she was trying to escape. She winced, unsure how she would get through security. Or on the plane. Despair fell on her shoulders like some unseemly shawl of cobwebs as the gummy feeling in her chest returned. The pendant that hung around her neck felt like a giant arrow pointing at the space of her chest that no longer held a brilliant tombstone, pointing out her seemingly unnatural, exposed chest. The bracelets on her wrists chafed, shackles of her past that she couldn't escape.

She'd never be _normal_. She'd never be _free._

A calm voice announced Lena's stop over the intercom in several languages as she packed up her things, waiting for the train to come to more of a stop. She wasn't used to riding trains anymore, despite practically living in one in her youth. That's how it was when she was a kid. That's how it was before Overwatch. That's how it all went before the accident.

She shuffled off, trying to leave the dark thoughts behind on the speeding train rather than take them with her. She didn't need that weight.

Her fingers danced along horizontal surfaces as she made her way through the train station's crowd, humming a tuneless thing to herself, distracting her from the eyes on her, but were they really even looking?

Probably not.

Still, that didn't erase the creeping feeling that someone was staring at that exposed, vulnerable place on her chest. Someone could kill her so easily now...

Her foot caught, making the breath huff out of her quickly and suddenly, and she looked around blearily, snatched from her encroaching dark thoughts. Her eyes met a small child's, looking up at her fearfully, tears in her eyes.

"Aw, Christ, kid. I'm sorry. Are you okay?" The recognition of her blasphemy caught up to her a few seconds later after her lapse in judgement. It had been a while since she'd been around an actual _kid_.

The girl didn't look over nine years old to Lena, and something about her reminded her of the time she'd gotten separated from her mother at an airport. Her wide, terrified eyes. Her recoil from anyone speaking to her.

"Kid…?"

"I…" She started in a quiet voice. "I think I'm lost…"

Lena frowned. "Where's your mum? She around?"

The girl shook her head once. "I'm going to meet my grandparents." She looked down at the bag in her hands, which looked a little oversized for such a small girl. "I- I got off the train at the wrong station, I think." Tears started welling up in her eyes. "I don't have enough money to buy a new ticket…"

Lena frowned slightly before smiling a little. "This your first trip by yourself?"

She nodded a little too hard and tottered.

Lena found herself giggling, the weight on her chest a little lighter. She wasn't in any particular hurry to get to the first Talon base on her list. She wasn't exactly ready to start killing people again.

How had she done it only months before?

"Listen, what's your name, love?" Her voice came out quiet and, even to her own ears, gentle and amiable.

"Marie."

Lena blinked, thinking of Amélie's middle name, and smiled again. "Alright, Marie. Do you have a phone to call your grandparents?"

The little girl sniffed incredulously, reminding Lena so much of Hana that it was hard to stifle a laugh. "Of course I do."

Lena nodded, still smiling. "Give 'em a call and say you're waiting on the next train. They shouldn't charge you for getting off too soon."

Marie nodded and did as she was told, her somber eyes scanning the surging and ebbing throngs of people flowing into and out of the subway. She nodded and ended the call, looking up at Lena. "They said it was okay, but I don't think they're happy about me being in a strange place."

Lena wrinkled her nose. "What do you say I stay with you until you get where you're going?"

The girl's cautious eyes bored into Lena. "Why would you do that?"

The corner of Lena's mouth quirked up. "Let's just say I'm one of the good guys."

* * *

Another hour passed before the train heading to Marie's destination rolled through, and in the meantime, they picked up a lunch on Lena's dime and talked. The girl asked Lena's name, which made Lena choke on her hoagie momentarily.

"Trrrr...ac...y?" It was a shitty attempt to sound normal, and the uncertainty drew the girl's eyes into fine slits. She was a shrewd one to begin with, but Lena's slip-up was only easily missed by the daft.

The girl said nothing personally revealing but did mention her love of older comics and heroes. Lena couldn't help but smile as the girl pulled out an old Overwatch issued comic - more propaganda than actual entertainment, but it was still something. She was almost sure that if she'd bothered to talk to Zenyatta, he would have called this "clinging to the vestiges of the past" or something, but this little girl was obviously enamored by the heroes of not so old.

Thankfully, this wasn't one of the comics starring her. Even so, the little girl gave her a smile, her dark eyes glittering.

"You look familiar, you know?" Marie laughed. "You almost look like Tracer."

Lena's heart skipped, but she tried to play light. Sometimes her survival instinct was worth a hoot. "Pshhh, if only I could be as great as she is. Don't get me wrong, I get that a lot, but I'm not nearly that good looking."

The girl wrinkled her nose back at Lena and laughed. "She _is_ pretty cute."

Embarrassed little butterflies fluttered around Lena's stomach for a minute as she covered her mouth with her hand as she laughed. She noticed the girls watchful eyes cease at the corners only briefly in a smile before going back to their increasingly haunting stare.

She'd learned a few things about Marie. Marie enjoyed old Overwatch comics because it reminded her that there were still heroes out there watching her back. Marie wanted to go into science. Some kind of chemistry stuff that Winston might have understood, but it was already out of Lena's depth despite the young girl's age. Marie had been in Venice the day of the mass bombing of the peace rally.

She'd only mentioned it offhandedly, but Lena could see the darkness in her eyes. It wasn't hard to imagine. So many had been there. So many lives lost. So many lives _affected_.

"Let me ask you something, kiddo?"

The girl looked up from her glossy paged comic. "Back to kiddo?"

Lena felt herself smile but pushed forward. "Why are you _really_ so interested in the old heroes even with everything that's been happening?" She waved a hand. "Venice… Heerenveen … Rio…" She shrugged. "Where are the heroes?"

The little girl looked up with a, what Lena discerned, rare smile on her dark lips. "They're right here, helping us. I don't think they hurt people in Venice. Not the good people, anyway. They're helping people in Brazil, probably. The news says that the people are fighting back, and that has to be… that has to be the good guys helping." She shrugged, turning a little pink. "I don't think I know where that other place is, though."

Lena shrugged, leaning back against the train car's seat. Her voice was quiet, but even she could hear the strain of her vocal cords as the stuffed down the tears. She didn't even know the answer to the question she intended to ask. "How can you be so sure?"

The girl looked at Lena, mouth tilted in a skeptical, no nonsense frown. "You really need to find a better name other than 'Tracy.'"

* * *

Amélie looked out over the city, waves of nausea washing over her. She thought going back to Paris would facilitate _some_ kind of good memory, but it didn't work. All that had happened besides dizzying confusion with every painful thought was a corpse a few blocks away. He'd gotten too familiar with her, and she'd snapped back into the killer that Talon had shaped her into.

Never again would another man touch her skin.

" _You don't have to kill anymore_ ," Gérard whispered quietly in her mind.

She sighed as she leaned her back against a chimney stack. "I didn't want to… It simply… happened."

She thought she could hear him sigh. Not in irritation. In sympathy maybe.

Oh, she missed her sweet love, especially being alone now. Alone in the night. The smell of blood in her nostrils and the height of the kill still thrumming deeply in her veins. She didn't want that sickeningly divine feeling within her, the transcendent glow of a kill… The real ecstatic love was in the _brutality_ and _grace_ of a kill - not in some unreliable person.

Death was always the same. Death never changes.

More than once had Death crossed Amélie's mind. She just wanted to be free of these chains. They felt so heavy… And she felt so… alone…

Every time the thought passed through the desolate, charred wasteland of Amélie's mind, the obnoxious giggle and quip of a little British girl followed in hot pursuit. As always. A little British girl nipping at the heels of misfortune.

It almost made her smile.

Almost.

But not quite.

 _She abandoned you like everyone else._

She remembered in vivid detail the sweat on Lena's skin as they fled into the snow-powdered outskirts of Heerenveen. She remembered the terror pushing her forward and causing her feet to stumble. She remembered the paralysis at the thought of pulling the trigger, no matter whether it would save her life or not.

She could remember the smell of Lena's perfume and the way the light caught on her chronal accelerator. She smelled the acrid smell of smoke and the cloying powder of brick dust. She remembered smelling _blood_ and _gore…_ Intestines exploded and arteries lacerated. She now could almost hear Lena's quick breathing during their flight, almost like her breathing when she was aroused only less erratic and more calm.

Amélie remembered that sound very well. She remembered Lena's quick, unsteady breath against her lips. She remembered the taste of Lena's skin and the tentative shyness in her kiss. She remembered warmth spreading over her and the way Lena's hands went to her hips as if holding her in the present… as if holding _herself_ in the present. Oh, she _relished_ that feeling. That memory.

But the pain still outweighed the pleasure.

Abandonment.

The thing was not quite Amélie thought about her flight through the countryside, avoiding small towns… Scavenging for scraps of food and cloth. Even now she looked like a starved skeleton wrapped in nothing but strips and squares of discarded or repurposed cloth. She looked like a scarecrow, some thing of evil warding off the good.

Amélie found herself speaking aloud. "Would she come after me again?"

Then, she laughed at herself - a cold, unforgiving laugh that was not quite her own. "Of course not. You shot at her, remember?"

Amélie did, in fact, remember shooting at the ground, spraying up dirt and debris and snow. She pulled the improvised jacket, held together by little more than duct tape and safety pins, closer around her shoulders.

She remembered shooting Lena in Drachten.

She remembered shooting Lena in London.

Every shot fired at the silly girl seemed to bring her closer to Amélie. To Widowmaker. To whoever she now was or was turning into. It seemed like a war going on in her mind that the rustling past part of her was losing.

Amélie pushed her feverish skin against the cold stone chimney whose chill seeped through her puny outer layer. Her skin felt so hot. Too hot. She constantly perspired at any extended run, any outbreak of unsavory emotion, and somewhere within her she could remember it all happening to her regularly.

It was like… Inhabiting a body that was not her own.

She'd been trapped under a thick layer of ice for so long that the sun's faintest rays burned long marks into her flesh, unseen but still there, exposing her to the world as unnatural.

Inhuman.

" _You need to get moving_ ," he urged her again.

She groaned, feeling weakness overcome her limbs again for what could have only been the hundredth time that night. She was so _hungry_ … But she had to keep moving forward. To where, she did not know, but that didn't stop her from continuing onward. She would find something. Peace, maybe.

 _No_ , whispered another part of her mind. _You'll never know peace. You live for the thrill of the fight and for bloodshed. No monster like yourself could ever find peace. The only peace you ever had in your grasp was in Reyes' hands, and you threw it away like some ungrateful, foolish child_.

Amélie leaned her head back, feeling the night's cold air against her burning flesh, and closed her eyes for a long moment, trying to focus on the present.

She couldn't go back.

She didn't know how to move forward.

All she could do was wander.

She took off, running across flat spots and leaping short distances, more afraid of falling than she thought she ever had been before. Had she been this afraid when she'd still been truly Amélie? Only once. Only when she'd begged anyone to tell her news of her husband after an assassination attempt.

No one had known the future - if Gérard had been alive, but they had to all walk in blind.

She was running around completely sightless, evolved out of her sight then thrown into a place where the scales had been ripped from her eyes - thrown into a terrifying world after so many years.

Alone.

" _Get to the safe place, then you can rest._ "

She laughed bitterly to herself as she trotted down a few dozen alleyways. Her dead husband was her only voice of reason anymore. She knew that this was something… incredibly concerning in any normal circumstance, but it kept her going for now.

The shaft of purple and pink light spilled from a crack in the door she looked for. No one thought twice of her there. She looked like everyone else under the lights even though her face was gaunt. There, she'd seen herself in a mirror for the first time since coming to some kind of her senses and staggered away.

The memory of her as she once was - skin the color of tanned calf leather, eyes a warm honeyed brown, raven black hair not different than now except its thickness. The woman she'd seen in the mirror in Venice.

It hurt to remember.

She slipped through the open door of the hostel and tucked away on a couch, resting her eyes until people started filing in from the nightly bar crawls. She would escape again into the night. She paid her due fees at the beginning of her stay, having stolen from so many people in small amounts and veiled herself in normal clothing over her suit, which she also stole.

One day, she wished to pay back her bad habit to keep herself alive, but she'd never been quite successful going out and picking up food not left behind by others. How could she go into any market… How could she have honest work when she looked like…

When Talon was still after her…

When she was such a _monster_.

Until then, she would sleep.

She was too tired to fear it much before her eyes slipped closed. This night she would leave Paris.

* * *

Amélie didn't leave Paris that night.

Instead, she prowled around, bumping into some late night bustling tourists. And… Some people who just didn't seem to sleep. Paris didn't sleep. She used to be one of those people.

Now, she needed to nap every few hours to keep moving. Never a long sleep. That's when the nightmares began. And that's when she emerged from her hiding spot and into the revealing light.

Despite the ambient city noise, she could hear the Seine River burbling not too far away as she left her hostel, a converted hotel turned into a crash pad not long after October's mess in Venice. Many people and omnics fled the city, seeking refuge in omnic-supportive places. Many hotels, out of charity rather than government interference, turned into cheap hostels or significantly cut their rates.

France wasn't exactly omnic-friendly, but it wasn't actively against them either.

To think… Her home now looked down its nose at her, thinking her strange and not worth the trouble.

She walked these streets day and night, sometimes in her sweats after rehearsals - her body trembled at the memory of spotlights like medical lamps over her - and sometimes dressed to the teeth, hand in hand with her beloved.

Oh, she missed him.

" _I never left_ ," he whispered to her quietly as the chilly air bit her cheeks.

She trailed her chilled fingers over the brick of a building, wondering how long it would be before she had to leave. The memories were getting stronger the longer she stayed, but what did that actually mean?

The pain had been swelling with every new memory that overwhelmed her.

The urges to kill becoming hard to control the longer she was around strangers.

Everything seemed so frightening and foreign. She felt like a child lost in a dizzying crowd with nothing to cling to except her own arms, which crossed over her chest protectively as she rounded another corner and heard a 24-hour club still raving into the late night that was steadily turning morning. It was close to four.

Amélie shook her head clear of her desire to go there, but the longing remained. She missed the feeling of warm bodies and simple enjoyment. She missed hot food. She missed sweaters and nonthreatening company, and despite her rational brain's chastisement, she missed Gérard Lacroix and Lena Oxton.

She missed the breathless exhilaration standing under the lights in the Palais Garnier and the Place de l'Opéra, executing every move flawlessly, knowing her partners would do the same. She missed gliding across the floors, straining with familiar effort. She missed the makeup and the uncomfortable dressings that they wanted her to wear instead of the skin tight catsuit pinching her under her street clothes. She missed performing the yearly Black Swan Benefit, a charity developed by none other than herself to aid children orphaned by crisis and war. She missed being the lead role in so many good things, knowing that she'd taken on a terrible identity against her will. She missed the memory of dancing not being a bitter taste in her mouth. She missed being Odette and loathed her position now as some unholy Odile. She missed seeing Gérard's smiling face, though such a goofy expression might have been unrefined in such a prestigious environment.

But then… Gérard would never come back to her, not in this life.

Maybe none of her former joys would ever reign so strongly as they once had. Maybe they would never come back at all.

Maybe, though.

Maybe that silly girl with fifty-seven freckles on her face and a stubborn heart would cross paths with her again.

Maybe Lena didn't want to see Amélie.

And maybe Amélie didn't want to see Lena.

She wouldn't know until that day came, if ever.


	30. Move

Days had gone by without Lena, and no one quite moved the same way, Angela noticed.

Hana seemed to be the one to take it the hardest, other than herself, but she was surprised to be waylaid on her way to her plans with Fareeha by Jesse McCree sitting at the kitchen's island and drinking his fifth beer. She'd fixed herself up nicely, wearing enough makeup for Fareeha to have noticed earlier and a nice enough outfit with even nicer, newer underwear underneath. She was distracting herself from her grief in all the wrong ways, but it wasn't going to stop her.

Fareeha had absolutely noticed her grief stricken haze.

Fareeha was taking Lena's flight rather hard, too, but she aligned with Zenyatta's thought - Lena would come back, and she might even bring along someone that they had once lost. Fareeha managed to stay so optimistic sometimes…

All of her plans, Fareeha undoubtedly waiting patiently with the candles lit, went by the wayside upon stumbling into the kitchen for a little late night sip of something more adult than tea. Everyone was of drinking age at the new Headquarters (Angela smirked at herself. She'd never stop calling this place the "New Headquarters"), but she still didn't want to make a big to do about her nightly routine of having a small drink before bed. Or her other small drinks during the day.

They'd gotten more frequent after Lena's disappearance.

Fareeha had noticed but didn't make too much of an issue out of it, trying to distract Angela with her _other_ needs that didn't involve drinking at regular intervals all day.

"Ang, do you have a minute?" The question came out more as a statement, and Angela briefly - and irritatedly - wondered why he didn't just come out and demand she take a seat. She had things on her mind that didn't involve talking to Jesse McCree. In fact, none of the things involved talking at all… Unless Fareeha wanted it that way.

"Jesse, I have…" She looked at the counter to see the bottles stacked neatly in a row. "Nothing going on," she amended quickly, looking away from the bottles with the same effect of her words. "What troubles you?"

Jesse leaned his forehead against the lip of the bottle and closed his eyes with a heavy sigh. He said nothing for a long moment, and Angela decided it best to slip into the seat beside him and offer a comforting touch. He didn't turn it away, for once.

A warm memory surfaced of the two of them - barely old enough to legally drink - intertwining arms and looking out over the compound before a mission. She remembered feeling such animosity toward Jesse when he'd first joined, feeling that he was a threat or a bad influence, and hell, she did even then but… Something about him called to her. His quiet nature or maybe his silly jokes. Maybe she was just desperate to have someone around her age that wasn't a fourteen year old Fareeha Amari.

Jesse had been readying himself to go on a prolonged mission with Reyes, with whom Angela planned on spending the night. " _I don't know if I trust him any more than at first, but the man gave me a home and a family._ " He'd shaken his head, hair only a little shorter then than it was now. " _I have to respect the man for giving me a second chance. That being said, I'm…_ _ **afraid**_."

Jesse's voice came out husky and gruff and quiet, more like he'd swallowed and gargled coarse granite rocks than like he'd been drinking alone. "Angela, could I have done something different to make her stay?"

Angela's heart sank, the fire building in her belly doused by the weight of the subject matter. She could try to rekindle that with Fareeha later. "Jess, there's nothing you could have done. Lena…"

Jesse shook his head indignantly before swaying a little. "Lena's going to get herself real hurt, Ang, and I don't want to be responsible for that." He laughed a breathless laugh similar to how he'd done when they were little more than children and he heard something ridiculous. "What am I saying, Angela? She'd do whatever she wanted. She doesn't _care_ about us."

A lead weight dropped into Angela's stomach as dawning realization broke upon her. "Jesse, you cannot turn away from Lena simply because she does something of which you do not approve."

He rolled his eyes and tilted back the brown bottle, which Angela plucked from his hand and gave a good slurp. "Angela, she's destroying the ones closest to her for someone she doesn't even know can be saved."

Angela remembered her youth, finding comfort in Jack Morrison's drunken arms. He'd said something similar. Maybe if she'd ignored Jack, Gabriel… _No_ … _Gabriel is gone._ She took a steadying breath before speaking, the vibrato in her voice picking up slightly at her discomfort. "Jesse… I think you've been spending too much time with your sweetheart. That's very similar to something he said back in the day."

He snorted again, drawing out a frustrated sigh from Angela. She didn't want to argue with him, especially while he was drunk enough to blackout. "Jack thinks she's doing the right thing. Just that she could have done it a little less… shitty."

Angela gave a noncommittal nod. Maybe Jack had the same thoughts that she had this time. Maybe…

"Jesse… Do you know why Jack says what he does?"

"No fuckin' clue, darlin'. Enlighten me." His voice drawled in its regular way, but the drunk edge made Angela wonder if she sounded as ridiculous to everyone anymore as Jesse did to her right then. Maybe this was the sign she needed to lay off the sauce.

"Jack and I… Had some conversations regarding Gabri-"

"You know I'm gonna kill that son of a bitch, right?" Angela looked up from her hands into Jesse McCree's steely eyes. He meant what he said. The alcohol might have enabled him to say those words, but that did not detract from their undeniable truth. He believed what he was saying.

"I…" She swallowed before telling the lie slipping from her lips. "I'm working on the bullet that Jack talked about."

"The _fuck_ you are. Don't fuck with me, Angela." His voice was hard, but the nonchalant exhaustion in his posture made the words a little softer.

She nodded in assent, however. "Okay, I have thought about the bullet and the weapon, but that conversation is for another time altogether."

He grunted in agreement and took another pull from the bottle.

Angela continued her thought, backing up to start from the beginning. "Jack and I had some conversations while we were both…" She felt her lips quirk up at the memory of him laying sprawled beside her upon waking, not looming over her. A first for the still young Angela Ziegler. She'd watch Reyes sleep plenty of times, enamored by his scars and strong features, but he would always turn the tide upon waking. "When we spent a good bit of time together. He said that he wished he would have talked to Gabriel more in the end - tried to convince him that the path he was taking was definitely the wrong one, but instead, Jack and I both were to blame I think, we let him go and spiral out of control. We let him suffer without our assistance."

"Was this before or after the Overwatch Headquarters exploded?"

"After," she responded curtly. She would rather remember the good than all the bad. There had been so much bad in those years…

Jesse sighed, rubbing on his temples. "Are you saying that we should just let Lena go and die?"

Angela shook her head furiously. "Of course not, Jesse. We are not _animals_. We need to let Lena go and do what she can to help Amélie…" She remembered how Reyes splintered after his testing. He'd held strong for so long and then suddenly began degenerating, making him volatile, rash, and violent. Hungry for power. No, he'd always been that way, hadn't he? Maybe in little bits but… Why had she ever introduced him to that program… She heard her voice shaking again at the memory. "Amélie Lacroix is in a terribly fragile position right now, and if we allow her to continue on this path, we will certainly condemn her as we did with Gabriel." She shook her head again, voice a little more certain. "I will not allow her to suffer and become what he has. I will not let her become another kind of _monster_."

Jesse rocked back a little. "Angela… If I weren't gay as hell, I would ask you to elope with me. You're just so damn… passionate." He paused. "I don't think you were born to lead, but that's alright."

The angry spark in her heart died out instantly, smothered by a genuine laugh that took her by surprise. "Well, Jesse, I might have thought, once when we were children, that you would make a good mate, but now, I see the error of my ways."

He snorted and took a sip from his quickly disappearing drink. "Angela, I love you like the sister I never had."

She leaned over and knocked her head against his. "You're drunk. Go to bed."

He grunted and finished off the rest of his beer and stood. "I'll get 'em in the morning. You go to bed, too, you hear?"

She laughed quietly and patted him on the shoulder. "You're such a sloppy drunk, I think you put me off drinking tonight."

He waved a hand as he ambled off. "Whatever keeps you sober, sis."

She watched after him as he staggered down the stairwell and briefly wondered if it had all been a ploy to deter her.

Nah, Jesse wasn't _that_ smart.

She cleared away Jesse's bottles, knowing full well that he would be too hungover in the morning to deal with it. Something in her still wanted to quench that thirst that burned in her mouth, but seeing Jesse so completely out from himself…

She shook her head and finished washing out the bottles before walking out with a glass of water.

She still had a date, despite being a little late, and she knew that she'd probably need some rehydration afterward.

Her cheeks flushed in the darkness on her way to the second attic stairwell, knowing full well that the Christmas candles that they both had received as gifts would be flickering in the dim light and glittering in Fareeha's dark eyes. Warmth from Angela's cheeks seemed to seep downward like steeping tea, coloring her body with blush. Almost without realizing, her bottom lip caught in her teeth as she mounted the stairs, and everything within her was nearly certain that she would, again, be waylaid from her evening's activities.

It was nearing one in the morning, and everyone except Hana _should_ have been sleeping, but she knew that Winston, Zarya, Mei, and Jack and Jesse were still knocking around. Winston knocking about in a different way than the other pairs, most likely. He was probably still trying to coax Athena from her shell.

Everyone else was knocking headboards.

Angela Zeigler's face burned a little brighter as she turned the silvery knob to her room to find Fareeha reclining in bed, book in one hand and the other on her bare stomach. Candles did, in fact, burn, their wax dripping down the sides in blobby veins.

Fareeha glanced up from her book and stretched, back coming off the mattress and stirring the sheets around her. "I was beginning to think you'd run off, too."

Angela smiled at her beloved's dry tone and sarcastic smile. Sometimes it was _very_ hard to tell when Fareeha Amari was joking, and in that way, she reminded Angela of her m- Angela shook her head, trying not to think about Ana Amari's existence only two floors below.

Especially while Fareeha was naked and lovely in Angela's bed.

She didn't often fool around with frilly underthings, calling lingerie a pain and mostly in the way for her own self, but she didn't mind partaking sometimes.

She sure as hell didn't mind it on Angela.

Angela closed the door behind her as quietly as she could and turned the lock sideways. She didn't want any interruptions. Her feet carried her over to the side of the bed, not a far journey considering that Angela and Fareeha shared one of the smallest rooms in the house, but the little room was not uncomfortably cramped nor cluttered.

Just as quietly, Angela set the glass of water on the side table and crawled into bed next to the lovely Fareeha and watched her eyes track to the last bit of a paragraph before placing her book to the side with a small, shy smile.

Angela reached out and touched the larger woman's shoulder and trailed her fingers down Fareeha's arm seamlessly despite the shift from skin to metal. Angela's fingers intertwined with Fareeha's, and she pulled Fareeha's knuckles to her lips.

Fareeha turned, rolling over to face Angela, and wrapped her warm, smooth leg against Angela's and around her waist. "Are you going to ask that question?"

Angela couldn't help but smile as Fareeha snuggled closer, placing warm, slow kisses on her exposed neck. "Ah, well…" She giggled as Fareeha nipped at the hollow between Angela's neck and shoulder. "I would, but I think I know your answer."

Fareeha sat up, pulling away her otherworldly warmth and the stronger scent of her spicy perfume. "Angela, I can feel with these hands. I can…" She frowned and pulled her hand away from Angela's grasp and pulled up on the hem of Angela's shirt, placing her hand against Angela's stomach. "I can feel your warmth. I can feel the goosebumps on your skin." She inched her hand further up Angela's shirt, sending Angela's heart flying with little warning. Delicate flames sparked again, sending chills coursing down her body and restricting her breath to erratic little more than gasps.

It hadn't taken much to stir Angela up, and she wondered if she was always missing this when she drank. The simple joy of feeling unimpeded by dull drunkenness. It was different than their more current escapades, which were muddled and still electrified by the alcohol's bliss. It was more like… her shyness abated a little more when she drank, but the butterflies that so thoroughly fluttered around in her stomach were elating in a different way.

"How _much_ can you feel, Fareeha?" Her words came out a little more breathless than she intended, which drew out a smug smile from her beloved.

Fareeha drew closer again, and Angela prepared herself for a kiss but was sorely mistaken. Fareeha's blazingly hot cheek pressed against her own, her lips brushing against Angela's ear and sending shivers down Angela's spine. "I can feel _you_ , Angela. That's enough for me." And she pressed her tongue against Angela's neck.

Breath caught in Angela's throat, followed by a soft sound that seemed to come from all the deepest parts of her. The deepest parts of her longing and desire.

The warmth and intensity of the action forced Angela further into the mattress, her hips tilting back as her back strained in an arch.

Fareeha caught Angela's lips in a fevered pitch and kissed her long and slow. Her hand trailed down Angela's body, pulling again at the hem of Angela's shirt, and Angela pushed away, feeling like separating for two long would possibly kill her. Fareeha made it so much easier to breathe…

Free of her shirt, Angela pulled Fareeha back down atop her and couldn't help but smile while looking up at the beautifully solemn face of a goddess. Fareeha descended again, kissing Angela's face and neck and collarbone.

Without pulling away, she asked a question so warmly against Angela's cold skin. "When did you manage to buy new underwear?"

A mirthful laugh graced Angela, lifting even more of the tension from her chest, and her hips moved against Fareeha unintentionally but still drew out a quiet moan.

Ever breathless, Angela smiled and struggled to find words in her growing haze. "I uh… Hana. Helped…"

Fareeha's hot breath blew through her nostrils and warmed Angela's neck for a moment. "Is it getting hard to…" She nipped at Angela's ear again. "talk?"

A low whine came from Angela's throat, followed by a contented sigh. Some anxiety still clung to her like icicles clinging to the last vestiges of winter in the approaching spring.

Angela could almost forget her apprehension for the time.

She could almost forget Reyes grabbing her roughly in the stairwell, burying his face in her hair. Holding her wrists tightly and being so terribly, terrible close.

The memory resurfaced with painful clarity. The smell of his cologne. The feel of his ragged, drunken breath. The complete surprise and confusion of the encounter despite their dating for a good while. She'd started becoming afraid of him around then. Afraid of what he might do. What he might be capable of. He didn't hurt her then. He just made it clear he wanted her.

Very.

Painfully.

Clear.

A horrible, fragile bubble burst in her chest, sending her spiraling and flailing away from Fareeha and onto the floor. A loud, strained sound reached Angela's ears, registering a second later as her own breath. Her chest burned, and her head ached. Confusing embers of desire still burned away at the edges of the paper thin yet so vivid memory. The tightness in her chest, like a corset on too tight, restrained her, pulling her back to the thought of Gabriel Reyes' hand around her throat, lips on her ear and looming over her.

Another figure's shadow loomed over from beyond her furiously closed eyes, and Angela felt the creeping terror within her manifesting as acidic bile and the urge to fight, muscles tensing.

"Angela… Habibi, what is it…?"

 _Not his voice…_

"F-Fareeha." Affirmation of another person.

Angela, eyes still clenched shut, felt warm arms scoop her up accompanied by a grunt of effort. Fareeha's naked skin brushed against Angela's and pressed against her firmly but not urgently. There was no passion there. No sexual drive.

Fareeha's soft voice coaxed Angela, whose muscles tensed and shuddered and jerked. Her teeth clicked against one another, and she buried her face in Fareeha's neck to still her chattering. The embers Fareeha's burning kisses still smoldered uncomfortably.

Fareeha's hands stroked Angela's hair as she whispered promises of safety into her ear. The churning storm brewing in Angela's heart and mind quelled tumultuously. Her breath still quavered, causing hiccups and sniffles. Had she started crying?

"Angela, my love, what is it…? Did I do something?" Fareeha's quiet voice quivered only the tiniest bit, and Angela's heart panged. She _hated_ hurting Fareeha.

"No." Angela shook her head, still trying to steady her breath, focusing on Fareeha's strong hands. Her deep breathing. The smell of that _lovely_ cinnamon apple shampoo. "You didn't do anything. Just…"

"Was it him…?"

Angela nodded, and Fareeha pulled Angela close.

"Do you want me to put some clothes on?" Her voice still sounded hesitant.

Angela couldn't keep a nervous laugh from escaping, her lips tingling with some kind of numbness. "Kiss me, Fareeha."

Her brows furrowed, and her pearly white teeth caught her lip for a moment before she whispered, "Angela, is that a good idea?"

The breath in Angela's lungs huffed out shakily as her hands began trembling again, every part of her feeling claustrophobic and electrified. "I need to feel something, Fareeha. I need to feel _you_. He's still on my skin…"

Fareeha leaned in, hesitation still coloring her rigid posture though her body completely intertwined with Angela, and kissed her gently.

Fareeha's delicate love washed over Angela, pushing out all of the trembling still wracking her body, easing and numbing the pain. The sheer overwhelming _presence_ of her beloved aided her in her dark times, giving her a steady, warm light to bathe in.

Some tiny worm of inadequacy tainted the kiss, but Angela stove to overcome it, almost physically putting effort into the act. She wound her legs around Fareeha's and pulled her even closer, needing her - holding onto her as if she were the only point of reality that she could cling to.

Angela decided to give Fareeha time, putting off her own need for at least a little while. Her hands wandered. Her mouth placed kisses with growing passion. Fareeha's soft sounds and steadily increasing intensity, her squirming and flexing hands, spurred Angela's own blazing desire.

Fareeha's surprised gasps and cries and squirming pleas into the night grounded Angela's wandering wind and calmed her skittering heart only for Fareeha, with a short, shocked cry, to arch, her fingers digging into Angela's back and pulling her hair.

Only a few breathless moments passed before Fareeha turned to Angela, a deep flush still coloring her cheeks, neck, and throat. Her delicate lips parted in a wide, impish smile.

The darkness consuming Angela finally burned away in the brilliance of that smile.

"Angela, I think it's your turn."

Angela felt her own face burning, and she lost herself in Fareeha's touch and undying love.

* * *

Angela, her hair undone and falling over her naked chest, intertwined her fingers with Fareeha's, her heart still flying wildly. Her brain's disdain for herself abated a little, relenting just enough for Angela to enjoy this breathless peace.

She felt herself muttering something in her native language and switched to English. "That was…" She couldn't find the word. "Neat."

Fareeha snorted and rolled toward Angela, holding her close. "It's late, so I'll let that one slide."

Angela giggled a little and rocked her head back. "I wonder how many people heard…"

Fareeha rolled her eyes. "You've never particularly cared before."

Angela shrugged. "You're right. It's late. I'm not thinking clearly." She sighed, hoping this carefree bliss would last through the night.

Fareeha kissed Angela's knuckles and shifted her weight to lean up over Angela, but Angela didn't find any intimidation fueling Fareeha's higher position over her. "I think you should rest, if you can."

Angela nodded, her eyelids suddenly growing heavy at the suggestion of sleep.

"Fareeha, tell me a story. Something that you remember that makes you happy."

Fareeha smiled. "Alright, but you have to promise to sleep afterward."

Angela nodded amicably.

"I remember when I was a child and I first met you. I remember my mother taking me down that… very long hallway to the hangar."

Angela smiled, remembering fondly the hangar that she so frequently visited to help heal injured soldiers.

"I thought you were beautiful, then. I didn't know what to do about it because you were…" Fareeha laughed at herself. "You were practically an adult compared to me. I saw you standing there with the old doctor and Reinhardt, and I remember my mother squeezing my hand, saying, 'That's the new doctor's assistant. Be nice to her. She seems quite kind.'"

Angela couldn't help a small giggle. "Your mom told you to be nice?"

Fareeha nodded. "I was almost angry at her for insinuating that I would be anything else."

Angela raised one sleepy eyebrow. "Fareeha, you know as well as I do that you were more than a handful when you were younger."

Fareeha laughed a little before kissing Angela gently. "Can I get back to my story, or do you want to keep going on about what a rascal I was?"

Angela smiled. "Alright, go on."

Fareeha nodded. "I remember feeling a little jealous that you had so much respect from my mother, but I didn't really know why. I kind of…" She laughed and looked away, her blush creeping back up on her face. "I kind of envied you. I wanted to fight you a little bit for some reason."

Angela couldn't help another burst of laughter. "To fight me?"

Fareeha's blush deepened. "I thought you were _really_ pretty."

Angela shook her head. "I guess that makes sense in a pubescent individual. Misdirected aggression as a result of a mother's diverted attentions."

"Are you a psychoanalyst or a doctor?"

Angela gave another sleepy, sleepy wink.

"Oh, go to bed, my love. You can barely keep your eyes open."

Angela grumbled something not even she could make out before a lucid moment. "Fareeha?"

"Yes, love?"

"Can I… hold you?"

Fareeha paused, her warm body turning. "Are you sure that you don't want me to hold _you_?"

Angela shrugged. "Just… let's hold each other."

Fareeha nodded and wrapped her arms around Angela's waist with Angela's arms wrapped around Fareeha's neck. Angela drifted peacefully with her forehead gently pressed against Fareeha's.

* * *

"Good morning, sleepy heads."

Angela went wheeling away from the source of the sound, the darkness of her peaceful slumber suddenly thrown off of her and into the soft light of the morning, temporarily forgetting her nudity.

"Oh, I see that I've come in on a very inopportune time," laughed Ana Amari.

Fareeha swore familiarly, snatching the comforter around both herself and Angela. This wasn't exactly the first time that they'd been walked in on - even poor Hana had walked in on their nude, post euphoric slumbers only once.

Angela's heart skittered and beat erratically, clinging tightly to the comforter for dear life.

"What is it, _mother_?"

Ana blinked with a disconcerted frown. "If you're in such a foul mood after last night, I don't know anything that would help you, Fareeha."

Fareeha scowled petulantly.

Ana continued. "I was going to bring you breakfast and let you know that Torbjörn has arrived, but if you don't want breakfast…"

"Leave it," Fareeha said quietly, and Angela looked over quizzically. Fareeha just shook her head once.

Ana nodded with a sour expression, set down a tray that she was holding, and left, closing the door with a quiet _click_ behind her.

Angela's brow furrowed. "I could have sworn that I locked the door last night."

"You did," Fareeha grumbled.

Angela frowned even deeper. "Is everything okay between you two?"

Fareeha shook her head. "I'm trying to get past things, Angela, but she keeps dredging up things that I wish she would not."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Fareeha's jaw clenched, and through gritted teeth, she calmly responded, "No."

Angela nodded, knowing that Fareeha would talk about it in her own time.

Angela stirred, climbing out of bed with not a threat on her body and retrieved the tray by the door. "We might as well enjoy our breakfast before we get to work."

Fareeha nodded, brightening a little. "Maybe we can enjoy a little more, if you're up for it."

Angela couldn't help but blush, suddenly realizing that breakfast couldn't fix all of her morning's hungers.

* * *

Angela descended the stairs a little wobbly legged and wearing some hastily donned pajamas, a robe, and a small smile followed by a similarly decorated Fareeha.

Mei and Zarya looked up from their snuggling on the couch and smiled at the two, Zarya laughing loudly in her way.

"Angela, the bird's nest on your head is filled with chicks."

Which must have been _hilarious_ given her tear bringing laughter, but Angela wasn't quite sure how to react other than to smile.

"Not all of us can have short hair, Aleksandra."

"Of course you could! You get some scissors. Snip snip. Done."

That made Angela laugh. "I think it looks better on you."

Zarya nodded sagely. "This is a wise choice, little doe."

Mei piped up, "Oh, Angela!" As if she just noticed Angela in the room. "Torbjörn is here and went up to work with Winston! He told us to tell you, and I almost forgot."

Angela smiled, thinking about how Mei, though she was a little ditzy, was still a valuable asset. She almost felt bad not giving her anything to do over the last few months, but there wasn't anything that Mei could do without going back to Watchpoint Antarctica and seeing the frozen corpses of her friends. She couldn't do that to Mei no matter how badly they needed some of the technology from that area. Besides, Talon probably took over the place and cleaned it out.

"Thank you, Mei. Are you doing okay this morning?"

Mei glanced up from her phone again with a fingernail between her teeth. "Oh," She said around her nail. "I suppose that I am okay. I am…" She frowned. "I am still very upset my Lena's disappearance." She shook her head. "Things are not the same without her. It is too quiet here."

Angela almost made a joke about how she thought Mei enjoyed the quiet, but then, she thought that it might not be appropriate considering that Mei just came out and revealed rarely directly expressed emotions.

Angela sighed, reaching back for Fareeha's hand. "Yes, I… I hope we find her soon."

Mei nodded and looked down at her phone again, seeming to withdraw a little more coldly than usual. Who knew Mei would have taken Lena so hard?

Angela and Fareeha scooted past the television and down the hall to Winston's hideout, mounting the stairs with still-trembling thighs. Reaching the top of the stairs, two booming voices and a quieter one, comparably almost inaudible, reached their ears.

 _Rein, Torb, and Winston._

Angela walked all the way up to Winston's area and knocked on the wall beside her. "Hello, all."

Rein turned with a great smile, both eyes twinkling, and Torbjörn laughed jovially. Winston grunted in amiable hello.

"Why, Angela Ziegler, it's been ages."

She smiled and nodded. "Several years since we've been in the same place in person, at least. Video calls don't do human contact too much justice."

Fareeha snorted, and Angela blushed. The two of them had done plenty of video calls and correspondences, doing no justice to contact.

But that's not exactly what she meant.

Torbjörn shrugged with a squinty smile. "Ah, I don't mind them, Ang. Sometimes, it's easier on everyone."

Angela withdrew her hand from Fareeha's and clapped quietly. "Enough chit chat. Let's get down to it. Do you have what I need?"

Torbjörn laughed. "Curt as always, my dear. I'll do you one better 'n just equipment. I have news that Lena is doin' fine. Peaches over plums. She's maneuverin' around without much trouble, but I don't know where she's goin' or what she's doin'."

Everyone in the room blustered and asked a million questions at once. Angela's blood ran cold. She reached for Fareeha again who took Angela's hand and squeezed.

Torbjörn put up a hand. "Before you say anythin', I went 'n promised her that I wouldn't say anythin' about her whereabouts."

Her lips felt numb and her legs went weak again. "Torbjörn, where did you see her?"

He shook his head solemnly. "I know what she's goin' to do. Saw her at a train station. Looked like she'd been runnin'. Didn't even have that blasted accelerator on her." He shook his head again. "Do you know anythin' about that?"

Angela noticed Winston shifting uncomfortably.

"I gave her jewelry that should keep her stable in this timeline. She must be using it to stay low."

Angela pinched the bridge of her nose. "She's not answering her phone."

Torbjörn shifted his weight from foot to foot before sighing again. "She looks like hell."

Angela bit her lip, and his eyes widened.

"I mean ridiculous. Her hair's all pink and shaved on the sides. She's got goggles on top of her head. Her harness was painted and her cuffs too. She's wearin' some kind of pink suit under some regular clothes. If I hadn't seen the harness pokin' out of her bag, I might not have recognized her."

Angela frowned but couldn't stop the smile on her face. "Lena's way of blending in never really made much sense."

Fareeha, who'd been quiet until the awkward lull following Angela's words, spoke. "Lena's painting herself to look like the gangs in her homeland so people will leave her alone."

Winston laughed. "She's a bloody genius sometimes."

Everyone smiled, but melancholy pangs played in Angela's heartstrings.

Everyone missed Lena.

Angela cleared her throat, pinching her nose to keep tears from cropping up again. "So, Torbjörn, do you have the materials?"

The smaller man nodded with such gravity Angela thought him a minister at a funeral for a moment.

"This is goin' to take a lot of work, but I'm sure that now Athena is more or less back to her old self, she can get those programs running on our old satellites."

Winston shifted in his large chair and clacked on his keyboard rapidly, only pausing to push up his glasses and to turn around with a large, Winstony smile. "Looks like the link went through. Our assistant in this project is waiting."

He clicked twice on his keyboard and the great monitor taking up most of the desk and the wall lit up with an increasingly familiar yet still stunningly beautiful face.

Her smile was almost nonexistent, her eyes sharp and calculating almost like Ana's but in a cooler way - a more controlled way. A way that sought out ways to build up rather than weak points to exploit, and maybe, Angela thought, maybe that's how Ana had been in her younger years.

"Greetings, everyone," said the calm, quiet voice of Satya Vaswani.


	31. Dangerous

Lena flitted through the small airport without much trouble, weaving in and out of crowds much like she had the train station, glad that she'd switched from the jewelry to her chronal accelerator discreetly in the bathroom before blinking to the next. That's all her trip was becoming - blinking around to be completely unseen by the public.

So different than those years ago when she couldn't even go for a frosty one with her lads without being nearly swept away by the people's' raving current.

She'd read so many things in her younger days about airplanes and airports, how they'd changed in the past from being less restricting to horribly stifling, running people through ringer after ringer, but with the rise of the omnics as a peaceful people and people with body modifications and metal prosthetics, airport security had to change. She could have simply walked through, as long as she'd made sure to turn off her pulse bomb. Most people in airports had grown accustomed to life support contraptions like Lena's chronal accelerator, but no one quite had one like hers.

It would make her too easily identifiable, and quite frankly, she wasn't sure if they would put her on their shoulders and parade her or arrest her. Poland didn't seem like a particularly aggressive place, but the suspicion and unease started eating at her stomach, knowing that she couldn't trust anyone.

They'd make her remove her jewelry if she went in as a civilian.

It seemed to be the only way to get through this labyrinthine place was to blink and sneak like a criminal.

Just like they suspected her to be.

She took a shaking breath in the handicapped stall, feeling a little ill at having to take up such valuable space, and she rummaged around in her bag for her jewelry, donned it, and unfastened the straps on her shoulders.

Her fingers trembled every time that she tried to remove the damnable contraption. It had been so long since this weight on her chest didn't _have_ to be there that any _thought_ of taking it off would stir the churning waves of bile in her stomach.

The chill of the metal almost seemed unnatural to her fingers - foreign in this flourescent light in this cold, cold bathroom. Something in her mind whispered to go back home before she got on a plane to fuck-all-knows-where, but another part of her - the burning fire within her - spoke louder.

She would go, and if she _had_ to go out, she'd take out as many people as possible - preferably Talon agents.

The only place she could figure to have the knowledge she needed would be in a secluded Talon base.

She swallowed, thinking about how she would handle being on a passenger plane.

Her jewelry tinked together in some places as she slid the lock to the bathroom's door, and she ran a hand through her hair with a shaky breath.

A few things happened in a blur.

A strangely claw-like hand grabbed the slowly swinging door and forced it open enough to allow a small body to slip through, another clawed hand grabbing the front of Lena's shirt and hauling her backward.

Breath left Lena's lungs, suddenly evicted with no demand letter. The strength of the shove took her aback and seemed for force her brain to blank out entirely.

Deep blue eyes looked directly into her own and a purple lipped smile spread over soft brown skin. What really caught Lena's attention, though, was the strange way the side of this woman's head had been shaved. It wasn't so different from her own disguise, though the stranger's hair was significantly longer. "Hello, Lena. I'm going to help you get on this plane. In return, you're going to do me a favor."

Lena tried to catch her breath as the door _schlicked_ shut behind this person seeming to hold her hostage. "Wh-"

"Oh, you don't have much time before the flight to Melbourne leaves. You need to stop trying to understand and just _do_." The woman released the front of Lena's shirt, dusting off Lena's chest and catching the faintly pulsing crystal on Lena's necklace - the main point for her rooting in this timeline. "I haven't seen this bit before. Interesting."

Lena blinked several times. "Who are you?"

"In this time where anyone can know you, we all carry false names. We all carry false identities. You _will_ go Melbourne. A small Talon base in Alice Springs has the information you want. If you really so desire to find who you seek, you _will_ get on that flight." She smiled, pushing past Lena again, nearly a ghost. "Gate 13. You have twenty minutes before the doors shut. I suggest you go now. Don't worry about seating. Sit in 2B."

The mysterious woman slipped out of the stall, a small beep following the door banging shut, and Lena halted for a moment before bursting from the stall to find no one there. Her heart, so unfortunately stopped for a moment, started growing in laborious staccatos.

Lena Oxton, weighing her options carefully and probably too briefly, decided to trust this stranger.

* * *

 _How could she know?_

 _It's a trap. You've walked into a bloody trap, and you're going to die._

 _No_.

 _Yeah, dumbass._

Lena sighed as she nestled into her first class seat, curtain drawn around her section. An empty seat sat ominously unoccupied next to her. She chewed on a fingernail that was already too short, her teeth snagging on the ragged edges and peeling them away.

A muffled voice spoke over the intercom and paused for a long moment. Some kind of ruckus starting and dying out from the other side of the drawn curtain. That same claw-like hand drew the curtain aside and replaced it back in a simulation of privacy.

"Sorry I'm late. That pilot wasn't easily replaced." She sighed, shook her hair, and leaned back in her chair, nearly disappearing into the large cushions.

"Wh-" Lena started again only to be interrupted by the intimidatingly beautiful woman's hand coming up to silence her.

"How do you feel about wine, Lena?"

"I don't… usually drink," she responded honestly. She didn't really know why this woman frightened her so much, but the way she said things - the way she sounded so in control of everything going on made Lena suspect that this wonderful seat, this lavish area in a passenger plane, these instructions to go to fucking _Austrailia_ … Everything screamed of a trap. Even her electric purple lipstick seemed to enhance her foreboding smile.

"Champagne then. We celebrate. I'll get you a water in case you still don't want anything." She stuck her hand out from the curtain and rolled her hand. A shadow fell over the privacy curtain. The mystery woman responded to the unheard question, "Yes, thank you. I think we could go for some champagne. You see, we are _celebrating_." A pause. "No, I would suggest that you get us our drinks, takeoff or none." Lena could hear her whisper something, but couldn't make out the words other than "bathroom" and "pilot."

The stewardess came back only moments later with a pale face and shaking hands that served a champagne bottle, a water bottle, and two full flutes of pale liquid.

The mystery woman downed her flute without any hesitation and refilled from the bottle sitting in a bucket of ice. "Ah, now we can get down to business." A pause and a smile. "After takeoff, though. Let me hold your glass. I know how rough this can be for you."

The murmuring on the intercom about the flight - a very, _very_ long flight - stopped and the plane lurched forward. Lena couldn't help looking out of her small window, her head spinning a little like when she'd had such a bad concussion from the fight with Reaper. She pulled the shade shut, her heart pounding hard enough to break free of her chest, and she suddenly missed the comfortable knocking and weight of her chronal accelerator which sat uselessly in her bag overhead. Even taxiing brought back terrible memories of the experimental craft.

 _Whomp._

 _Whomp._

 _Whomp._

Static.

Void.

The mystery woman put a hand on Lena's forearm and squeezed. "We're about to take off. Breathe, Lena." Lena cracked an eye open, pushing out a regulated breath from between her lips and noticed the woman's smug smile. "I know nothing will happen this time. You could say… I've got this plane in the palm of my hand."

The next thirty seconds were horrible for Lena Elizabeth Oxton.

Her knuckles protested and popped as she clutched the armrests of her lavish seat. Her regimented breathing went wild and her nose went numb. Her lips followed. Through her eyes clenched shut, she saw a horrible darkness - a terrible absence of everything. A lurch in her stomach let her know that she was still there, though.

The panic and terror ebbed slowly, sapping away painfully slowly, but it did.

She took the drink that the mystery woman had ordered.

She knocked it back and shook her head, opening the shade on the porthole window and looked out at the quickly shrinking city below.

The woman, at some point, had released Lena's forearm and now languished in her chair, looking as comfortable there as she might on a throne or a beanbag chair.

Lena poured herself another glass of champagne and cracked open the water bottle, taking a long swig, relishing the coolness slipping down her throat. When she spoke, her voice shook a bit.

"So. Who are you?"

The mystery woman smiled. "We all have secrets, Lena. We all have titles. Most of them are lies. What do we choose? Names? Most of the time they are things put upon us, don't you agree?"

Lena shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

"As a friend, I'll tell you this. You can call me Sombra."

 _Sombra. Shadow?_ Lena frowned, discomfort still eating at her like a moth in a wool coat. "What do you want, _Sombra_?" The word felt like oil in her mouth.

The woman who called herself Sombra laughed and ran a hand through the hair that fell over the right side of her head. "Oh, queridita, I just want to make friends in this world. There are…" She waved her hands, her… fingernails… lengthening a little and pulling up a holographic image that made Lena's blood run cold. " _So_ many things that go wrong." Lena watched footage of herself frantically trying to unfasten her buckle in the experimental craft and then simply… vanish in a flash of blue light. "So many places that fall apart." Lena watched Overwatch Headquarters explode all over again. "So many people that _get hurt_."

Amélie Lacroix.

Naked.

Strapped to a chair with a gag in her mouth, her eyes blazing yet shining at their innermost corners.

Reyes had her by the hair, whispering in her ear.

He shoved a taser in her side.

"Stop," Lena breathed. Creeping coldness combatted the furious fire raging on at seeing her best friend being tortured. She'd reconciled the others. "I shouldn't have come here," she said mostly to herself. "This is a trap."

Sombra closed her fingers lazily into a fist, artfully gapped eyebrows raised in feline amusement, and the purple framed images vanished.

"If you think rescuing Amélie from herself is a trap, then you're free to go, but I _do_ think that letting her go is a trap. That would mean… oh, that would mean that the security at the Melbourne airport will pick you up under suspicion that you're intending to destroy the airport with…" She looked down at Lena's bag. "I understand you have an incendiary device in that bag of yours…"

Lena swallowed.

It didn't look like she had much choice. She doubted Sombra was lying. She didn't exactly look like the type of woman to cross. "Do you work for Talon?"

Sombra rolled her eyes and flexed her fingers again, showing an array of photographs and stills from film. Some of the images were gruesome - two people laying draped in unnatural positions with pools of dark blood surrounding each in an otherwise modest and cheerful home. Headlines that proclaimed, TWO BARLOW CHILDREN MISSING? and MYSTERIOUS MURDER IN SUBURB. There were reports with official looking speech. Signatures upon signatures. Verified dates for the thirty-first of December. One week ago.

"Talon's old regime is dead and in the hands of a very dangerous man. I was making efforts to destabilize Talon just like I did to Overwatch through disrupting Gabriel Reyes' programming." She laughed, but there was nothing humorous in it. Lena couldn't help but feel incredibly sick and begin to regret everything about this exchange. "I told Talon to up his conditioning, and the little doctor thought it was her own mistake. He'd started working for Talon before anyone realized. He was a _spy._ " She did shake her head. "I have no loyalties to that disgusting little man for many reasons."

Sombra wiped away the reports with a wave of her hand and brought footage of Reyes standing over a kneeling woman, letting her bleed out.

Lena felt her breath catch and her stomach roll. Sombra leaned in and pushed Lena's forehead back to tilt it all the way backward. "Breathe through your mouth."

Lena did as she was told. Clammy hands of slipping focus grasped at the corners of her mind. "Why…" her words were labored and hard to reign in. "Why are you telling me all of this?"

Sombra sighed. "Honestly, I thought you would have figured it out by now."

Lena remained silent, focusing on breathing and not puking all over the beautiful, intimidating woman in front of her. Her patience, like her emotions, was wearing thin. She couldn't help but feel as though the bile clawing at her was the bitterness welling within. "What? You want me to do your dirty work or else you'll have me arrested? Some friend…"

Instead of incensing the woman, Sombra seemed pleased. "I don't ask my _friends_ to do my dirty work, Lena. I'm plenty dirty on my own." She winked, and Lena felt her face turn red, betraying the intentionally sullen expression on her face and turning it more embarrassed than sullen. It had been… a long time. "Lena, don't feel so ashamed. I know what you do in the late hours when you're alone, sighing, 'Oh, Amélie.' Oh, you think it's surprising that Athena watches you all constantly? She has no choice, and her systems aren't as well protected as you seem to think." She waved a dismissive hand. "I got a _seed_ in the last time I bothered to infiltrate her, and that's all it took. I controlled the Overwatch operation as much as I once did Talon."

Unknown eyes bored at Lena's neck at the mere thought of anyone watching her - Athena, her… She almost thought the word _friend_. She hadn't been a friend to Athena when she'd fled into the night.

"What do you mean? Do you not control Overwatch anymore?"

Sombra shrugged. "You people don't interest me. You're no longer a threat. You no longer run the world. Talon… Talon runs more of the world than even _you_ know." She paused, rattling the metal bucket and spilling some chips of ice onto the carpeted floor as she poured herself another flute full of champagne. Lena offered her empty glass to Sombra's glee. "And now Talon is run by someone very dangerous to me personally, as well as the only people in this world who can treat it fairly. That's all I care about. I grow tired of war and killing. It is… distasteful. I am a product of it."

Sombra sipped at her drink this time instead of gulping it down - both of them did.

It was going to be a long flight.

* * *

"So, why did you break into the aviation hangar?"

Lena blinked a few times, glancing up from her lap. She'd been dozing off and on for the last hour or so, thanks to the alcohol, stress, and general lack of sleep on the run.

"I've told this story about a thousand times," she grumbled begrudgingly. "I'm sure you know anyway since you've been putting your nose in places it doesn't belong."

Sombra laughed pleasantly. "Oh, I like learning about people. Information is valuable, sure, but people are just _interesting_."

Lena rolled her eyes. "Thought it was cool, love. That's all."

Sombra smiled. "Oh, I think it was more than that."

Lena flushed. "Okay, well… I mean I was _there_ , and Overwatch was so…" She put her hands up. "Overwatch was so bloody _cool_ that I figured if I broke in that girls in my class would throw themselves at my feet."

Sombra shook her head. "I think I like you. I made a good friend choice."

Lena blinked again, rubbing her eyes to try to help them focus. "What do you get out of this?"

Sombra shrugged. "I don't like Reyes."

Simple. Sweet. To the point.

"Is that all?"

The woman across from her waved her hand again and pulled up footage from somewhere Lena couldn't identify. "He's causing a panic everywhere he goes, and I don't like authority, if you haven't noticed."

"Consider me baffled, I had no idea," Lena snorted.

There was a moment of silence.

"Have you ever wanted to knock the pins out from under someone because they were corrupt and you could?" Sombra's voice was quiet, thoughtful - much less sarcastic and condescending than Lena had heard it in their two hours together.

Lena shook her head but paused. "I used to beat people up in flight school for picking on other people. Wasn't so good at winning, though."

The corner of Sombra's mouth quirked up. "Yeah, well. This is like that except on a much larger scale."

Lena frowned. "Do you hate the omnics?"

Sombra laughed. "I hate what a group of them did, but I blame their makers, not them. They orphaned me at a very young age, Lena. For a time, I suppose I did hate them. I blackmailed my way into a gang simply to gain strength and power. I became…" She motioned at herself. "Now, I think I may be more machine than man." She shrugged. "My birth name means nothing to me. It was attached to my humanity, and I've left most of that behind in a hunt to dismantle the ones who are ruining the world."

Lena grabbed her water bottle, grimacing as the crinkling plastic scraped at her brain like nails. "You're being awful forthright."

Sombra shrugged. "I see no point in being anything less than honest with you, Lena. That's what friends do."

Unease washed over Lena, and she must have worn it plainly on her face as Sombra quickly rebutted, "I only lie to save my skin. I use people to get the job done. If I lie to those people, why would they cooperate with me?"

Lena nodded slowly, coming to think of Sombra less as a threat and more of a shady employer. "So… This place in Alice Springs…"

Sombra rolled her eyes. "It's got what you're looking for."

Another silence fell over the two of them, and Lena could not escape Sombra's large, beautiful, prying eyes.

"How do you know Amélie?"

Sombra smiled and leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "I gave Reyes a direction for programming her, and then we worked together for a time before I grew bored of Reyes' antics. Overwatch was still a force to be dealt with then, but once it fell, I took off. I doubt Amélie remembers any of it too well, but she always _did_ have a great capacity for remembering." She tilted her head, graceful lips pursed. "Come to think of it, she probably wouldn't remember our antics together."

Lena swallowed. "Antics?"

Sombra waved her hand. "Don't worry your pretty little head about it. I _know_ for a fact that your drive to find her is, at least in part, a result of those wonderful little lips of hers."

Frost crept over the fields of Lena's heart and threatened to turn it into an ice block. _Amélie_ …

"Ah, she can't be held responsible for any of that. She probably wasn't even aware then. Just doing her job. All of it 'a part of her training.' Reyes _said_ he wanted to get her to use everything she had to take someone out - her beauty, her grace, her cute little face." She shrugged.

Lena looked down at the semi-opaque cap on her water bottle, feeling her heart sinking like a stone. She shouldn't have stupid enough to think that Amélie had been alone all that time after Gérard.

"It _was_ kind of weird when she was just so-"

Through gritted teeth, Lena whispered a quiet, "Stop. Please."

Sombra shrugged. "I was just letting you know that you're in for a wild ride, but I'm sure you know since you used to live with her and Gé apartment couldn't have had thick walls."

Lena _did_ know exactly what Sombra meant. Too often, she'd flee into the night unnoticed by the two lovers in just the next room over. It _hurt_. They were always quiet, but Lena _knew_ , which was almost as painful as Amélie's occasional outcries.

"Why are you being-" Lena took a breath, her voice coming out a little louder than she meant for it to be. "Why are you being such a _DICK_?"

Sombra just laughed. "I'm glad to know that I struck a nerve. At least you have some." She looked down and swiped her index finger to the right in the air, pulling up a date and a clock. "I meant nothing by it. I was testing you to see what I have to work with. You pass, at least, even if just barely." She settled down in her seat, zipping up her jacket to cover her mouth, looking much like a child. "We still have a few hours. I suggest that you try to rest unless you want something to eat first."

Lena grumbled, trying to make the growls of protest in her stomach cease - she'd been a little less fed than usual on her travels - and failed miserably. Sombra, as if making up for being a huge dickhead, bought Lena a large meal and some sparkling water. Lena ate slowly, trying to seem disinterested in the incredibly delicious food filling her overly hungry stomach. She wasn't going to give this woman any more pleasure than she was already giving herself, but Sombra smiled, as if knowing from Lena's petulant frown that she'd won another round against Lena.

* * *

Fitful rest found Lena and dragged her under tumultuous waves.

Shattered dreams, fragmented beyond stringing together clashed and collided like ashes mingled from a large fire.

" _I thought we were more to you than that_."

" _Adieu, chérie."_

" _I thought I was your family, too_."

 _It was almost too much, even for Lena's unconscious mind._

 _A flickering blue flash seemed to light up the dark, terrified skies in her mind like lightning. Like a camera flash. Like the experimental aircraft before severing her connection with space and time._

 _Lena found her eyes fluttering open to a room that seemed familiar and foreign, and she noticed that the walls were the wrong color - a deep black that seemed to shift and swirl, soaking up the morning light streaming through the windows spattered with rain. Papers lay scattered on the coffee table, Lena's blocky handwriting contrasting Amélie's neat loops - study notes for her General Education Degree._

 _The large television positioned carefully out of the morning sun's harsh rays babbled out news feed of a plane crash for a flight to Melbourne._

 _She pushed herself off of the lush couch, her semi-permanent sleeping place, and wandered to the apartment's more public toilet. Lena never understood why a one bedroom apartment needed two toilets, but she was glad for it. She wanted to take a long bath and think. Her muscles were sore._

 _Mission?_

 _What was her last mission?_

 _She'd pulled her shorts down and pulled off her shirt, thinking it would be laborious - the large contraption on her chest was still strangely, uncomfortably new. Wasn't it?_

 _Her shirt was off._

 _Her red sports bra clashed with her blue boxers._

 _Amélie teased her about not having matching underwear._

 _Amélie. Amélie… Where was Amélie?_

 _Lena let the bath water run - There was no bath in this toilet, but here it was, running with pleasantly fragrant water._

 _Lena hadn't put anything in the water._

"Was it cold?"

 _Amélie._

 _Lena wandered out of the bathroom, glancing back at the water. It hadn't filled the tub in the slightest._

 _Gérard and Amélie's bedroom door was open._

 _Lena pushed it in to find Amélie arched back, bare chested and positively naked over Gérard. His eyes looked wrong._

 _His skin looked wrong._

 _She looked wrong._

 _Her skin was purple, bruised, and stretched tightly over her bones._

 _Blood poured from her open mouth and spilled onto Gérard's naked chest, filling the holes - oh, so many holes - that gouged out his chest cavity._

" _Amélie?"_

 _The purple-skinned Amélie opened her eyelids to reveal hollow sockets within. Her mouth, still gushing blood, did not make any noise but made words resound all the same. "Lena, save me. Save him."_

 _Lena tried to scream._

 _She couldn't scream._

 _Her lungs._

 _Her lungs burned._

"Lena," a voice hissed.

Oh, her _lungs_.

"Lena, oh, Dios mío, stop yelling. You're making everyone nervous."

Lena heaved a breath through her nose, her mouth covered by Sombra's soft hand. "Wh-" Sombra removed her hand and Lena gulped air like a landed fish. "What happened?"

"You've been asleep for three hours, and you just started screaming out of nowhere." Sombra rolled her eyes and pouted. "I was having a good nap, myself, but oh, _no_ , not for me." She slapped Lena's knee and shoved water at her, cold, unopened water. "Drink."

Lena did as she was told.

The pilot murmured another thing overhead, but Lena couldn't make out the words. Sombra tilted her head. "We're making a pitstop for fuel. Don't get off this plane. I have to leave you, once we land, but I think you can make your way. Anything you need, don't hesitate to consult me."

Lena felt her eyebrows knitting a lovely line together as she sipped cool water. "How?"

Sombra flicked a finger at Lena's cell phone, laying on the armrest not occupied by Lena's arm. "I took some liberties with your things. Don't worry, I didn't bug you, but I _did_ give you a good contact to reach me." She paused. "And _what_ did you do to Athena? She's completely unresponsive. You need to undo this. She's your biggest ally. Even if _you_ can't see it."

Lena muttered something along the lines of, "Keep your beautiful, grubby mitts off my shit." But the threat was lost with the compliment.

Lena was more than ready to be rid of this woman, even temporarily.

She brought terrible things to mind.

Lena already had enough of that on her plate.


	32. Please Let Me Let It Go

"You've gotta be fucking _kidding_ me."

Hana Song dragged her hands down her face and fought the urge to tear her hair out. It was a close call, though.

"Hana, she's the only chance we have to build a teleporter," chided Lúcio delicately. His eyes glinted in the dying sun streaming through his window. She loved seeing that side of him - gentle, delicate, full of laughter. So often, she felt as if she could reach out and touch him, through the screen. Like they weren't separated by thousands of miles.

But now, she wanted to scream. "Lúcio! We can't trust her! She still works for Vishkar! How'd she get those _files_? Not even _I_ can get those files!" She stamped her foot under her desk while she held her bursting head on her shoulders. She'd lost track of how long she'd been awake again. "Lúcio, something about this smells, and I don't like it one bit."

"Hana," he reprimanded quietly. "You have to work with her or everything falls apart. We're all relying on you here…"

Hana felt her arm fall to heavily from its elevated position and slammed onto the table, jarring a half finished bottle of soda clean off her desk. "I didn't ask for this," she half muttered to herself. She felt her voice rising. "I didn't _ask_ for this!"

Tears bit at the corners of her eyes. She needed to stop talking or she would start crying. She was tired. Her eyes had phantasmal dirt in them. Her skin stretched over her bones, and her hair pulled against her scalp.

"Hana, please… You don't have to start working with her tonight. I-" He looked away, not drawn off by some unseen figure. He was looking away out of _discomfort_. "I'm worried about you. You don't look like you've slept at all since Lena left. You're constantly up around the clock - I've checked your activity on social media. You never sleep."

Hana's dry eyes darted to the fallen soda bottle. If she could just squeeze out a few more hours, maybe she could _find_ Lena. Bring her _home_.

The fact that they were making her work with _Satya_ made her want to scream in an entirely different kind of frustration.

She trusted _Satya_ as far as she could throw the beautiful woman. She worked for the enemy her whole life. Why would she change now? Her and her gorgeous face… Could they be trusted?

Thinking about Satya's thin lips and her watchful eyes in the night was fueled by a confusing mix of emotions that was better left as a frustrating fixation. She'd been desperately running from those feelings. Anger was the only thing she could trust anymore.

She found herself looking very long and hard at Lúcio. What had he _done_ to change Satya's mind?

Hana very intentionally hadn't talked to Satya. She let everyone else do the talking to her.

"Hana," pleaded Lúcio. "We can't do this without you, and you look like you're barely hanging on."

A horrible sharp lump seemed to form in her throat. She wanted to go _home_. But she had no home. This place no longer felt like a place where she wanted to stay. Everyone seemed to treat her as a fragile thing rather than a functioning member of the team. Only a few weeks had gone by without Lena, and the only ones who weren't _afraid_ to talk to her were Jesse, Angela, Jack, and Zenyatta. Zarya would shoot her sad looks. Mei would pat her shoulder sympathetically. Fareeha didn't speak frequently anyway, but in her grief, she was more silent than usual. Genji avoided Hana without so much as a glance her way.

They didn't have their game night on Fridays.

"Lúcio, I…" She trailed off, unsure of where she was going with that line of thought but simultaneously certain beyond belief. She wanted to back out of everything.

But she would _never_ quit.

She couldn't give up now, when everyone needed her. She couldn't give up now, when Lena was missing. She couldn't give up now, when she needed to prove her worth. She couldn't give up now, when she needed to be the most valuable on the team.

"I'll talk with her tomorrow. I need…" She trailed off, getting lost in thought for a moment, wondering how Satya would treat her.

"Time," finished Lúcio.

Hana nodded.

He looked away from her, and she pulled at a stray hair, suddenly wondering if she looked as grimy and greasy as she truly was. She hadn't bathed in a few days. It was hard to do when everything felt like one long stretch of time.

"And sleep."

Lúcio nodded, but there was no exchange of kind, compassionate words. "Write me. Please…" The window with Lúcio's shining face froze and went dark with a small noise, replaced by a phone in its cradle.

End call.

Hana let her tears fall.

Deep aches wracked her chest in waves, rocking her to her core and washing her in chillingly painful ice that stabbed her heart with a thousand spears. She tried to keep her sobs quiet, leaning her head into her hands in front of the chat screen. She rubbed angrily at her itchy eyes and desperately wished she could just fall asleep right there, but as soon as round one of her sobs dinged out, the second round came with a knockout.

She didn't hear when someone knocked on her door and let themselves in.

"Hana," a soft voice whispered tentatively. A voice she almost couldn't place in her ashamed surprise.

She turned, sniffling and trying to roll her eyes hard enough to banish the tears. She was almost sure that it sounded like Fareeha, but the voice was too rough, too worn. Ana Amari stood with her hands behind her back, which pressed against the closed door. She didn't look uncomfortable, but her eyes - eye - seemed… sad. Her posture didn't give any indication of any particular emotion, but there was still something about her that seemed sympathetic without the same condescension Hana felt from Zarya, even though she didn't mean to.

"Oh, hey," Hana felt herself say lamely.

Ana came in, looking around at the place, and Hana suddenly felt the urge to clean her room, take a shower, and make her bed. She also felt the need to make good grades on tests and apply for scholarships. Not out of fear, no. Out of want to impress.

Ana took her seat on Hana's couch, her socked feet tucked up under her much like how Lena sat. Tears threatened to breach the dam Hana had hastily built up. She missed Lena so badly.

"Uh, what… what do you need?" Twisting seized Hana's stomach, wondering why Ana would show up. She'd been a rather solitary individual, even around Reinhardt. She didn't speak much, simply watched. Hana thought she could reason out why Ana had been one of the best snipers on record.

"I came to see how you were doing, child."

Hana opened her mouth to protest, but decided against it. Ana could have a pass.

But.

It seemed everyone was treating her more and more like an incapable child rather than a team member. Cold talons began ripping at her heart again, and she swallowed. "I'm doing…" She saw Ana's glinting, prying eye and thought better than to lie. "Bad."

Ana almost smiled, a ghost of the thing sliding across her lips like a transient spirit, passing swiftly and nearly unnoticed to the afterlife. "It's good to see that you're being honest with me."

Hana rolled her eyes with a genuinely amused snort. "I think you'd be able to see right through it."

Ana smiled her phantom smile again. She spoke more than Fareeha, but she still did not speak as much as most. Not nearly as much as Reinhardt. Not _nearly_ as much as Angela.

"I…" Ana Amari paused, putting a finger to her lips in thought. "Will you allow me a story, child?"

Hana paused a moment, turning her chair around to fully face Ana, before nodding.

"You know the tragedy that I have endured."

Hana didn't respond, unsure of how to answer. What did she _really_ know about Ana Amari?

Not a lot.

Ana sighed and pulled the hot pink pillow from behind her back and held onto it while she talked. "I loved my Overwatch family very much. I worked with them constantly… I worked my fingers and my knees to the bone, killing and healing. Killing and healing." She smiled down widely at the ring on her finger. "I found Reinhardt, a great man with a great heart, but I was not ready in the slightest, then. He seemed to understand. Things were still too fresh with Jack and Gabriel."

Hana fought a frown. Ana's storytelling was strange and sparse compared to others, but she figured that Ana was sparing her some of the more gory details. Or boring details. Or, heaven be thanked, steamy details. She didn't want to think about Ana like that.

"I worked alongside Gabriel and Jack, my best friends. We ran around, drinking, smoking, chatting up whoever we could. We went out on missions together and watched each other's asses, and they took care of me as best they could, especially when I got pregnant. They kept me out of as much danger as they could, and they were both good men." She paused and began twisting the gold band on her finger. "After my dear Fareeha was born, I left her for long periods of time to go and continue my life, and when she turned two years old, I realized that I was letting someone else raise her." She shook her head. "I was letting the Overwatch organization raise my child instead of being a mother to her."

Hana pulled her feet up in her chair and wrapped her arms around her shins, resting her head on her knees.

"I spent weeks away from her. Once, I spent two months away from my _infant_ , and I realized, when she was running around and talking and babbling like a toddler does, that I wasted so much time. I vowed, then, to be a better mother to my child. What she doesn't seem to realize is that Jack and Gabe helped me raise her. They were both as good as fathers to her." She laughed - such a rarity that Hana jumped a little. "It's funny to me, now, but I loved them both. Looking back, I think we all loved each other dearly, but Jack went his own way and left us both to become the Strike Commander. I was nothing but happy for him - Well, that's not true. I was worried about him." She shook her head with a sigh and a long pause.

Hana felt a dawning realization wash over her. "Reaper got jealous of Jack, and he was mad at you for not being mad at him too?"

Ana shot her a stern, hard look. "Do not call him by his silly little name. Take that power away from him. He is _human_ \- nothing more, nothing less."

Hana swallowed a spiky lump in her throat all too loudly.

Ana sighed and motioned for Hana to join her on the couch, and Hana obliged without hesitation.

"But yes, in short, Gabriel felt the need to be jealous of our loved one, and he tried to engage in more programs." Her voice turned hard. "Angela Ziegler was introduced into his life not long before this all happened. He toyed with her for a time despite us both telling him to leave her be, but that only seemed to make him want to toy with her more. He fell away from me and Jack to take up with enhancement programs and Angela, and I feared for her as he began changing for the worst. I think he thought, in a way, that he thought he loved her. I _know_ that she loved him." Ana looked down at her hands and the pillow in her lap. "I didn't do enough to protect the girl. I tried to get Fareeha to take up a lot of Angela's time, but now, I just know that I was manipulating them all. I suppose, however, that is not so bad now."

Hana didn't really know what to say. She'd heard versions of this story from Angela and Fareeha, but Jack didn't talk about it. None of them had been completely open about their feelings regarding the situation. She could understand why Angela avoided it, but the others…

Maybe it was too painful to remember.

Like extracting shrapnel from your best friend's leg.

A best friend that came out of a weird crush.

A best friend who had no sense of self preservation.

A best friend who abandoned everyone.

A best friend who was really no friend at all.

Hana shook her head vigorously, trying to clear her head of those dark thoughts. Lena hadn't abandoned them, she'd just… _Left us all to go find someone she thinks she loves._

Ana Amari took in this long silence without any visible discomfort before resuming her tale. "I went on a mission with Gérard Lacroix right before that awful thing happened with him…" She trailed off again, still looking at her hands. "I asked him what kept him coming home some days, because I knew for sure that I couldn't let myself get tied down like that, and he laughed at me and said that I'd already had a kid. Damn, he was right, and damn if I didn't make myself available to Fareeha as much as I could when I had time off." She sighed and pulled off the engagement ring that Reinhardt had given her and looked on the inside, squinting a little with that ghost of a smile on her lips, but this time it was definitely sad. "I told him that he didn't have one, and he said that Amélie's love was enough to bring him back home from the farthest places the universe could send him."

Hana couldn't keep bitter venom from her hateful words. "And then she went and fucking _killed_ him."

Ana nodded slowly. "Watch how you speak of her, child. The old Amélie is dead, and we do not disrespect our dead here." A pause. "Talon… destroyed the old Amélie. I saw her, and she took my eye." Ana tapped her eyepatch. "Everyone should have listened to Lena, then. She said she saw Amélie there at the funeral, and we all dismissed it as a raving of a bereft, heartbroken individual." Another pause. "What I think I'm trying to say is that we should have trusted Lena then, and we should trust Lena now, even if we don't understand what in the _fuck_ she's doing."

Hana smiled at the gruff woman's curt and elegant swear. Her unsettled heart grew a little more still. "I… guess." She sat there another long minute. "Ana…"

"Yes, child?"

"Thank you for telling me all this."

Ana raised an eyebrow knowingly. "Sometimes the wisdom of an elder is just what you scamps need."

Hana smiled back. "One more thing."

"Yes, dear?"

She thought about her anger. Her hatred. Her fear and her insecurity. Her self-loathing. "How do I deal with wanting to punch someone and wanting to kiss them at the same time?"

Ana laughed and put a hand on Hana's knee. "Oh, my dear one, you'll have to ask dear Jack about that one. He and Gabriel were very much the same."

* * *

Hana crept from the bathroom to the kitchen to grab a snack of something other than a bag of chips. Angela stood over the stove, stirring a pot of… something.

"Hey, Angela," Hana commented lightly on passing to the fridge.

Angela jumped with a start and a red face. "Oh, Hana. Hello."

Gripping the fridge's handle and pulling the door slightly, Hana gave Angela a long look. "Jumpy much?"

Angela laughed and covered her face. "A bit. I've been working on… some things."

Hana put up a placating hand. "You don't have to talk about it." She rummaged in the fridge and pulled out a wad of lunch meat before stuffing it in her mouth and chewing. She pulled out a block of cheese and started carving while talking with a full mouth. "I mean, I know that there's stuff you're working on with Torb and Jack and Winston. I know that you've got a lot on you." She shrugged shoving a piece of cheese in her mouth and going for some bread.

Angela's disapproving, matronly look said more than any words.

"What?" Hana deflected with a mouth full of gluteny goodness. "It's a deconstructed sandwich."

A knot in Hana's stomach slowly untangled as Angela started laughing a little, even if her smile was sad. Her shoulders dropped, and her throat eased up, making swallowing her sandwich a little easier.

"My child, you look exactly like Lena. That is all." Hana stood and closed the refrigerator door slowly, relishing the little _hiss pop_ of the sealed door. "Would you like some hot chocolate?"

The casual, almost flippant, mention of Lena made that uneasy knot start pulling itself back together, but she nodded. "Yeah. That sounds good."

Hana tried not to remember the last time Angelahad made hot chocolate for her. The night Hana pulled shrapnel out of Lena's leg.

Uncomfortable sweat stabbed needles in the pores of Hana's armpits. She wanted to change the subject because her feelings regarding Lena and her departure were still incredibly muddled and confusing. On one hand, she wanted to forgive Lena. On another hand, she wanted to slap the shit out of Lena.

Angela sighed with a small smile, a smile that told Hana what she'd been up to.

"So, how's Fareeha?"

Angela's cheeks lit up like the Christmas tree they'd taken down the day after Lena's disappearance. "She's doing well. She's going to have some coffee with Ana. They left right before you came in the kitchen."

Hana blinked, confused. "They're doing okay then?"

Angela rolled a shoulder noncommittally. "They're trying. Ana and Rein have decided to stay as long as they can without putting a terrible burden on us. I told them that they were fine, and Ana has been helping me keep everyone together." She shrugged and pinched her nose briefly with the hand that was holding the pot handle. "Jack won't have anything to do with leading any of us, so it's… on me still, I suppose."

"He helps some, though, right?"

"Ehhh…" Angela smiled down at the liquid in the pot. "He does his best, but I don't blame him for not wanting this position. There's so much more involved than just-" She lowered her voice. "'sit down, you' and 'behave.'"

Hana couldn't stifle her laugh.

It wasn't a sarcastic laugh.

It felt good to laugh.

As her chuckles faded, encroaching anxiety backfilled where laughter had claimed.

"I, uh," Hana trailed off, queasiness twisting her insides like beaters in a mixing bowl.

Angela poured off the liquid - the hot chocolate - in two mugs and sat perpendicular to Hana in the seat at the bar. "You, also, do not have to talk about it, if you do not want."

Hana pivoted, hearing soft clunks right outside the doorway. Her heart skittered a little, but she couldn't help but smile. Jesse McCree came to her rescue.

"Oh, hey, y'all."

Angela smiled. "Hello, Jesse."

He spread his hands with a shit eating grin. "You didn't make any for me?"

Angela shook her head. "I don't fix anything for cowboys. I've figured out that they may want to wrangle with you if you do."

Jesse laughed, and Hana looked down at her cup, wishing she had her phone to fiddle with, but she'd left it in her room. She was fine talking with people one at a time or even talking to a screen with thousands watching, but when more than one person showed up for a conversation, she found herself getting quiet. She just found her wealth of words diminished or gone, her insecurity parading and jumping around and drawing impish faces on the posters of her mind.

"You're awful quiet, little lady." Jesse went to the fridge and pulled out a beer, popping off the metal cap by wedging it between two plates on his metal arm.

Angela gave him a firm glare, sipping her hot chocolate with a raised eyebrow and eyelids lowered slightly. "That arm is still new, Jesse. Don't make me take it away from you to fix it again."

Jesse laughed and sipped his beer, leaning on the counter. "Back to the little thing over there, though. What's up with you?"

Hana shrugged. "Just don't feel much like talking."

Angela rolled her eyes. "You were about to say something before Jess came in the room. What is it, my child?"

Hana chewed on her bottom lip and slowly spoke, carnivorous butterflies eating at her stomach. "I'm thinking about setting up a meeting with Satya."

Jesse and Angela both sat down their beverages and gave her surprised looks. Her face burned and chill crept down her spine.

"What." It wasn't really a question. It came out more of as a demand.

Jesse popped the silent bubble first. "That's great, Hana!"

Angela reached out to briefly touch Hana's arm with a smile. "I'm sure you two will get along well. She's a rather nice person once you get through the angry glares. She's not actually an angry person, I don't think." Angela paused, poking out her bottom lip in thought. Hana almost laughed despite herself. "I think she just… _looks_ like that."

"Restin' bitch face, you mean," added Jesse helpfully, tipping his beer bottle neck toward Angela.

Angela rolled her eyes with a snort, not even trying to chastise him. "I suppose."

"See, I'm not worried about her being…" Hana trailed off, realizing that she'd exposed herself to more questioning, and anxiety's rising tide came washing in again.

"Her bein'?"

"I'm worried about her connection to - I'm frustrated by -" She stamped her foot indignantly on the barstool's support beam. "She's just too damn pretty."

Jesse laughed his comforting laugh, and Hana could almost forget the pain he'd caused Lena. She could almost forget that he could turn on a dime. She almost forgot her discomfort.

Angela looked down in her cup with a smile and an understanding look in her eye, softening the inquiring look into one of sympathy. "Hana, do you trust Lúcio?"

Hana rolled her eyes and began to stand. "It's not that I don't trust him, Angela." She stopped standing. What _was_ she feeling? What did she _mean_ by all of this? Did she trust? Who didn't she trust…?

Jesse and Angela sat expectantly.

"I'm going to talk to her tonight," She said with sudden resolve. Now it was a game. Now, she would win. "It's not like I've slept for a few days, and it's not like I'm feeling like it now." She glanced at the analogue clock on the wall and frowned again. It was later than she'd thought. "Why are Ana and Fareeha going for coffee so late?"

Angela smiled. "I think they're going on a mission together, in all honesty. A self-proclaimed mission, but a mission nevertheless."

Hana couldn't help murmuring to herself, "The coffee ruse was a… _distaction_."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Angela frowned but then shot Hana a stern look, dissolving any mirth in her cherubic face. "You should go ring Satya now, if you want to catch her."

Hana groaned and slid off the bar.

Jesse tapped her shoulder with his fist. "Go get 'em tiger."

* * *

"Hey, you're gonna do great."

Hana sipped on her almost cold hot chocolate despite it being a cup of liquid heaven that she usually would have downed while it was still too hot. The last time she'd had it had been the same. "Lúcio, what if she doesn't like me?"

He laughed his sweet, melodious laugh. "Hana, is that what this is about?"

Hana frowned, thinking about the times she'd seen pictures of Satya and felt… strange. She wanted to be mad about it, but at the same time, she couldn't stop thinking about the beautiful woman sometimes. She'd never _talked_ to Satya nor had she wanted to up to this point for fear that Satya wouldn't _like_ her.

She worried about Satya's relationship with Lúcio, but it was almost entirely secondary to how afraid Hana was of how Satya would perceive her.

The ringing screen went black for a moment before a sharp face replaced the black. "Hello?"

Most pictures Hana had seen had Satya with her hair bound tightly on her head, accentuating her sharpness. Now, her gleaming black hair fell around her face and over her bare shoulders, complimenting her warm skin and contrasting her light blue shirt.

"Uh…" Hana found her tongue glued to her mouth and cursed herself. _So much for first impressions_.

"Oh," said Satya, her face growing red. "Oh, hello, Hana. It is good to meet you finally. I…" She tugged on her hair a few times and continued. "Hello."

Hana laughed and pushed her own wet hair back, that tight bubble around the knot in her stomach popping and the stone dissolving. "Hey, there."

Hana noticed Lúcio smiling brightly in the shared screen with a flustered Satya.

"I-" Satya cleared her throat and shifted the camera. "I wish either one of you would have warned me."

Lúcio frowned. "Ah, that's my fault."

She pulled on her hair again. "I would not be so slovenly if I were to have known."

Hana's heart skipped. "Oh, no!" Satya started slightly, and Hana covered her face's slowly growing blush. "I think you- look great." Hana paused awkwardly for a half a second. "Sorry."

Satya looked away, her cheeks growing darker. "No apologies necessary."

Lúcio's eyes seemed to be going back and forth on his screen, watching Hana for a moment then Satya. His smile hadn't dampened in the slightest. "This is going well."

Hana pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, and not knowing what to say, she just repeated herself. "Hi."

Satya laughed a quiet laugh - very different from Lúcio's joyful bursts - and looked away. "Hello."

Lúcio rolled his eyes playfully. "Are you two just going to flirt awkwardly all night, or are we actually going to talk?"

Both Hana and Satya made outcries of protest, glanced at one another, and began laughing.

Satya recovered first, mirth still lighting her eyes with gleaming brightness. "I think that… this is quite sufficient for tonight. I wish to…" She paused, thinking carefully. "I wish to just… talk. This is my first time meeting you, Hana, and I wish to know you more than just in tales and reading about you on the internet."

Hana felt herself trying to hide her creeping blush behind her mug. "I've… heard a lot of things about you, too."

Satya raised a delicate, firm eyebrow. "Good, I hope."

Hana nodded vigorously and bumped her head on her cup. _Oh my god, I'm an idiot._

Satya raised a hand and covered her smile, looking away from Hana's eyes. "This is… you are… a lot to take in."

"And I'm not even in close proximity." Hana wanted to slap herself but resisted the urge. _Why would you_ _ **say**_ _something like that? You. Just. Met. Her._

Even Lúcio's face turned a shade that Hana had never seen. "It's… good to see we're all getting along?"

Hana laughed.

Satya laughed.

He laughed, too.

* * *

After a few mere hours, Hana, Satya, and Lúcio were delving into their private lives, bringing up hurtful pasts, unfortunate circumstances of youth, and hopes and dreams.

Something about their calming presences enticed Hana to talk about the things that she kept hidden from most, including her closest teammates. But then again, wasn't Lúcio supposed to be her closest teammate? It had started to feel like he'd been falling away from her in the recent past. That insecurity held fast, but its grip had been greatly diminished.

Hana's unease ebbed away slowly like an eroding monument and still persisted in some small fashion, but she could swallow freely and feel much less likely to puke all over her desk and computer.

Satya stretched and yawned. "I grow very tired, all. I think I should… very much like to stick to my routine as much as possible, despite the fun we're having."

"Oh," Hana's heart sank a little. "Did I keep you from sleeping all this time?"

Satya shook her head. "No, but I would like to sleep now. I usually sit and read for a while before bed."

Hana nodded and noticed Lúcio's sheepish look. She'd have to talk to him after this.

"Well, uh," Hana began. "Get some rest, okay? We can talk business tomorrow."

Satya nodded, looking rather drowsy. "Good night, all."

"'Night!" Lúcio chipped in right before Satya hung up with a smile.

The call ended and Hana sat dumbfounded for a long moment before ringing jolted her from her introspection. She shifted and accepted the video call to find Lúcio wearing that same weird little smile.

"What?" demanded Hana.

"I'm just…" He slapped his forehead and ran his hands through his hair. "I'm so glad that you two are getting along. That's going to make everything easier."

Hana felt herself frowning, insecurity creeping around and prowling like a deadly predator stalking her fragile sense of self worth. "What do you mean?"

Lúcio looked down. "Nothing. I'm just really glad you two are getting along. She's kinda turned into my best friend down here."

Hana wrinkled her nose with a smile. "Really? You haven't really put her up to be that way."

He shrugged, still red faced and shiny eyed. "You didn't seem to like her very much."

"Lúcio," Hana said gravely. "Look at me. I'm a kid compared to her. I'm insecure and weak and useless to my team. I sit around and make money because seven million people want to sleep with me. I am _useless_ in a real battle unless I have my giant fucking robot." She laughed and waved a hand at herself, realizing how terrible she was beginning to sound, but she couldn't stop this outpour. "I'm a complete idiot, and I'm jealous because she's prettier than I am, and she's obviously smarter than I am. She's _useful_ , and people here actively seek out her help. You're handsome and wonderful and successful, and here I am… sitting around, watching the world turn, gathering useless information." She sighed, feeling that tightness in her chest again. Fatigue and fear. "I can't do _anything_. I can't give you what you want."

She noticed how Lúcio leaned back, his eyebrows raised and his mouth gaping slightly. "Hana, what?"

"I'm so far away from you, and she's right there, Lu. She's beautiful and successful and stunning and _there_. She can give you so much more than I can." Hana laughed disdainfully at herself. "Doesn't it make _sense_ that I wouldn't seem to like her?"

"Hana…"

"I know. I know it's stupid." She shook her head, feeling bitter tears stabbing the corners of her eyes again. "I want to like her, now." She paused, taking a shaky breath with another laugh. "Now, I want to be her friend, as easy as that. God, I'm so _lonely_ , Lúcio. It doesn't matter if you video called me while on top of her. I probably wouldn't even care at this point. I would probably feel like I _deserved_ it, at this point. I wouldn't _care_."

Lúcio's surprise turned to concern, and Hana realized how she was rambling, letting out her deepest fears. This happened when she was overtaxed and overtired. She said things that didn't make sense mixed with the things that kept her awake for a week straight.

"And I feel fucking _guilty_ for having any doubt about you or her, now that I've talked to her." Hana hung her head. "Lúcio, why don't you leave me? Why do you _stay_ when I can't do what you need?"

Lúcio shook his head, his face suddenly, uncharacteristically grave. "Hana, I _love_ you. I've loved you for all this time. Why would I leave?" He paused, looking down at his hands on the table before him. "The only reason I would leave is if you wanted me to leave."

Hana's voice, which had raised its pitch and vibrato, changed into something absolute. "No, Lúcio. I don't want that."

"Are you… still afraid that I'm… not being faithful to you?"

Hana shook her head and covered her face with both of her hands. "I don't know what to think. I don't think you are, but _fuck_ , I wish you _were_."

Lúcio frowned more deeply. "Why?"

Hana looked up, the tears welling up too much for her to hold them down. "So I could be mad at her."

"Hana, are… you sure that you're okay to work with her? You seem… really bad."

Hana laughed again, still as bitterly as the time before. "Yeah, I'm fucking terrible right now, but I'll be fine working with her. I like _her_. It's me that I'm struggling with."

Lúcio frowned. "Hana, I really think you should try to rest."

There was a long, long pause filled only by mild static from over the line and the creaking of the Headquarters in gusts of snowy wind.

She bit her lip and pulled her knees closer to her chest, trying to fend of encroaching cold as realization began settling over her in a horrible, terrible blanket threatening to suffocate her. "Lúcio?"

"Yes, Hana."

"I can't stop being afraid that I'm going to let everyone down."

"Hana…" He started.

Hana interrupted, her hands beginning to shake and her voice growing tight. "I'm afraid that I'm going to hurt everyone."

"That's-"

"Lúcio."

"What is it, Hana…?" His voice was quiet and his eyes were more than a little sad.

"Would everyone just be better off without me?"

"No, Hana."

She sat there for a moment, unsure if she believed his words.

 _If Lena can leave me, anyone can._


	33. This is London

Amélie Lacroix looked down from her perch over the gloomy street.

Some small part of her had come to accept the fact that she didn't like to be on ground level with everyone else anymore. Too often did she feel removed from those around her - forcibly removed from humanity with invisible forceps that left visible marks on her body: blue skin, thin hair, a lesser need for food and blinking.

She was not _human_ any longer.

She hadn't been for a long time.

She was only beginning to come to terms with that.

It'd been weeks since her last encounter with that beautiful, stubborn fool of a girl. Amélie shook her head, even now not knowing what to think of it all. Every time she sought out the memory, her head pounded hard enough to make her teeth hurt. She didn't know who was in control of that memory. Whether it was herself or…

A shiver ran over her skin, pulling back and raising the hairs on her arms. She frowned disdainfully at her own body's reaction. She still wasn't accustomed to how it betrayed her so regularly by showing how she really felt or what she really needed. She still wasn't sure whether or not to think it useful.

She tried her best not to think about or acknowledge the whispering in the back of her mind that bade her to kill. Sometimes, she acted without thinking and sloughed off into a miserable bout of coldness. Or killing apathy.

It was hard to differentiate sometimes, and that drove her nearly as mad as feeling it looming in the distance. She sighed and pulled her coat around her a little more - she'd stolen it from a man passed out from his own drunkenness. Luckily, it hadn't been befouled in any particular way that would have put her off from taking it. He hadn't even woken up as she was rolling him out of it, but she made sure that he was face up in the slushy puddle of snow. He would have easily enough drowned that way, and maybe she would have left him if she hadn't been feeling particularly charitable. But… something within her cringed at killing uselessly, the same way it always had.

She stood there on the rooftop, making sure to go unnoticed.

 _This_ place would surely recognize her if she got caught being visible.

Talon had erased her presence from this place as much as possible, but there was something about radicals that made them able to hold on to every shred of evidence and ignore a larger picture. She was sure that she'd seen pictures of herself falling through space, rifle raised to her eye - perfectly poised to take the life of an omnic that was trying to do so much good. And why?

Because Talon had told her to.

For the good of Talon.

Taking a life for nothing more than a kill order.

That day, she'd pitched the world into an even greater fiasco of panic and omnic hatred, allowing people to see someone so great be murdered so coldly.

She didn't like thinking about those horribly fragmented times when she was still trapped in the Widowmaker's web, but she had to face the fact that she had been the one to set off a horrible series of events that had begun with a single bullet - a procession that, like a line of dominoes, had built and built and finally climaxed in the terrible loss of so many lives. So many _innocents_.

Amélie sighed, wondering how she would ever be able to live with herself in this hellish place.

She had no idea why she would ever go to King's Row, but there she stood in the biting cold and wind and sleet.

Weeks even still.

She wondered what Lena was doing.

Probably smiling and laughing with Hana - with her people. Where she _belonged_.

Amélie would never belong.

She hadn't belonged pre-collapse, and she _surely_ would never belong now that she had caused so much pain and grief. The thrill of the memory, shooting Lena in the leg while looking into her horrified, terrified eyes was replaced by a blizzard colder than any Amélie herself had ever endured. Why had she maimed Lena then…?

 _She endangered your mission_ , whispered the icy voice of Widowmaker.

Amélie inclined her head to the phantom voice in acknowledgment. _That didn't make it right_.

The voice between spoke to her - a voice she'd come to trust more than her own. _You cannot trust in what is right and wrong anymore. You are compromised even in freedom. You still belong to this world and its codes, but you must make your own code - your own right and wrong._

She looked around warily before trotting off and succumbing to that second voice. It helped her cope this horrible world she'd found herself in. Particularly here in King's Row.

Amélie thought long and hard for tactical information on the place, suffering a headache from periods of static in her memory even still despite the ebbing fuzz, but most of her time in Talon was still… a blur. She remembered an ambiguous purple streak here, Reaper's red streak there. An electric blue lighting up the night sky. The chill and the cold of somewhere she could not remember.

She remembered something about that night at King's Row - a driving force. Whispered words and goading. Programming. Reprogramming. Who'd been in charge? She couldn't remember that any more than she could remember what years of her life had been like under Talon.

But… She remembered so clearly seeing Lena reach out in that blinding white light behind her eyes as Reyes jammed electric currents in her body, gashed her skin in the most delicate ways. He'd made her torture an art form, but someone was always there in that debilitating pain, urging her to get through.

How had it been?

The only one capable of speaking to her when she'd been so repressed.

 _Lena_.

Reaching out in the darkest times. Even when it was just her mind fabricating the entire experience. Lena reaching for her to pull her up from that black pit with its unfurling tendrils that tried so desperately to pull her back in. Something stirred within her, calling up a terrible desire to let those tendrils wrap around her throat and pull her away. Pull away that consciousness that seemed so tenuously connected to her body and let it die.

She could be free again so easily.

Free?

No, not the right word.

She could relinquish her power to Widowmaker and let herself die.

 _Isn't that what you've wanted for so long?_

Amélie shook her head decisively. She wouldn't fall victim to that again. She needed to look forward with the coldness that she'd gained through Widowmaker's eyes. She needed to use that icy cold threatening to encase her heart to help her make logical decisions.

There was a time and place for empathy just as there was a time and place for apathy.

Right now, in the deafening quiet of the sleet and empty streets, she needed apathy to shroud her instead of the ability to feel this debilitating chill creeping into her trigger finger - a living, lacing frost dancing delicate lines over her skin, despite her layers of tattered glove. She'd need to find an alcove for the night to keep some of the sleet off of her. Newspapers didn't really keep anyone warm, but they would keep some of the weather off of her skin.

For a brief moment, she missed the clubs in Paris - the blissfully unaware drunken people that she could steal from and manipulate into buying her food and drink. Some they would take her home for her to manipulate even more. She'd killed more than once in her time there. When men got too close… When women couldn't back down… Indiscriminate killing.

But _God,_ she wanted a warm bed and a hot meal. Her two weeks in this place had shown her another part of the world - somewhere intolerant of her skin and her modifications. Somewhere that beat her down over and over and wanted to kill her. Paris had been ambivalent to the point of neglect, but this place wanted to eat her alive and spit out her bones. All omnics - all of those with body modifications - even those with prosthetics… They were hated here. Despised. Loathed. Wanted _dead_ simply because they were different.

She frowned, seeing a bobbing light out of place down a narrow alley and almost followed it. Almost. The careful part of her mind warned against being seen, and Amélie's curiosity pushed her forward. But… that intermediary part of her won out and drove her away from the place for fear of being watched. Down the alley, anti-omnic graffiti painted the brick walls and the stench of piss and beer and vile flowed out like bread smells from a bakery just… much less pleasant.

Rowdy cries rang out from the putrid corridor, and a distressed beeping ensued.

Amélie's heart skipped and dropped into her stomach.

She couldn't just stand idly by, right? There had to be something that she could do.

 _Make your own code_.

With a shaking voice, she clenched her chilly hand into a tight fist, set her jaw, and whispered to herself: "I am more than my programming." With those words, she almost thought she could feel her destiny swirling around her. Something ethereal, indescribable, but… real.

She had made a Choice.

And she walked down the dark path between buildings, a starless sky reigning overhead. The darkness fit her and her mood. She was _meant_ to prowl and lurk unseen.

The life of a sniper.

The life of a _spider_.

To weave your web, sticky lines like tripwires all around you, yet never caught yourself. To prey on those who get caught in your trap.

She felt a chilly smile spread over her lips as she reached around for her rifle, which was... no longer there. Her exuberance faded slightly, but that calm, quiet elation still spread over her. The anticipation of the kill. She didn't need to kill, but… this was a special occasion.

Sometimes a spider needed to venture out a little more from their comfort zone.

She wouldn't wait until it was too late.

She would strike before this -

Rounding the corner, a knife from the hidden strap on her thigh in hand, her eyes fell upon three fully grown men attacking a… boxy looking thing with moss dangling from nearly every flat surface. A bird's nest lay broken on the ground at its feet.

The boxy thing beeped and whirred frantically upon seeing her, drawing the men's attention from the omnic to their surroundings.

She didn't know how, but she registered those beeps and bops as communication and words.

[Get out of here!]

She gripped her knife a little harder and threw herself against the man closest to her with a short yell, burying the knife between two of the man's ribs in one swift motion. Her body arched and twisted in the air in the same way that it would in complicated moves during her most graceful performances. As the man screamed, hot blood on her freezing hands, another part of her stirred - something craving satisfaction. This was, in a sense, a performance, and she would not be outdone.

With her feet on the man's chest, knife wedged between his ribs, sticking out like a deadly turkey timer, she wrenched her body downward, twisting and pulling out the knife with a sickening _ka-chunk_ and the musical crunch of splintering bone, but her stomach did not give way like she feared each time during a kill. She never relented in her successes. She never waivered. She remained calm and collected, feeling little more than a baseline thud in the back of her mind - her heartbeat?

Using the falling man's chest as a backboard, she flung herself away, though her legs protested weakly from lack of food, flipping backwards and landing in a ready crouch, bloody knife upraised. The two men started forward for a moment in the light of the battered omnic's glowing eye, their faces angry. Their gaze passed from her to the feebly quivering, bloody man on the ground and back, and they faltered. It seemed to take them a few long, long moments to process what they were looking at, but when it clicked, it _clicked._ Their faces twisted with abject horror. Jaws went slack and eyes went wide, their hands going to their waistbands briefly before seeming to forget an important detail. They seemed to be unarmed.

Widowmaker's smile returned - not a wide thing by any means, but it conveyed more thrill than anyone could have known. Her heart remained steady and her breathing did not quicken. She narrowed her eyes, trying to get a better look in this second long standoff, but these men were too cowardly to try to fight her. She knew that _they_ knew who she was. No one could look like her. No one killed men like her. No one could be more deadly powerful than this.

She _relished_ the power.

"Run, foolish children. Before I decide to kill you where you stand."

And they fled.

That leaden _thud thud thud_ quickened for a fraction of a second as she spared a glance down at the body before her feet, leaking out pitch black blood in the moonless night.

"You there," she found herself saying to the bot, which looked more like a complicated, sentient turret now that she was close enough to see them.

"Doo weep weep!"

Widowmaker's grip on the forefront of this shared mind softened, but her ears still pricked at any slight noise. Her eyes seemed sharper, picking out small details and shifts in the shadow, and her instincts screamed at her to run and hide to not get caught. Her deed was just so far away, and her hand held the bloody knife.

"Yes, I know that wasn't the best method to resolve things." She pulled at the sticks jamming themselves in some of the bots more sensitive equipment. "Can you move? Did they hurt you to badly?"

"Deewoo." The omnic seemed incredulous at the thought of mere men even making a dent in their hearty exterior. Before her eyes, the omnic whirled and twisted into something that vaguely resembled a humanoid shape, and a vibrant yellow bird came swiftly floating downward to rest on their shoulder. It twittered brainlessly at her.

"Good. Let's get out of here before someone sees."

* * *

She didn't talk to the towering bastion unit - she remembered some little she'd been taught about the infamous omnic attack droids - on the way to wherever they were going. They had simply beeped out something to the effect of [Come with me if you want to live,] which sounded a little melodramatic, but who was she to say anything about melodrama?

She hadn't chosen a melodramatic lifestyle, but damn if she wasn't playing into it really hard. Creeping around at night. Stealing castoffs. Fighting omnic hate groups in alleys and leaving their bodies.

Melodrama was her friend at this point.

She felt the corner of her mouth quirk up as the bastion unit sauntered beside her, whistling happily to itself as the bleak backdrop of hundreds-year-old buildings contrasted a skyline full of skyscrapers, full of vibrant neon lights glittering on the inside and out.

"You know, it's not every day that I find myself following strangers places."

The bastion unit - Bastion, as they apparently preferred - responded in the only way they knew how. "Doo weet weet whaaaahhh doooweet."

Amélie quirked her head, nodding. Her foot turned a little on a loose cobblestone while she was looking up at the skyscrapers. It didn't do more than make the ache in her bones a little deeper. "A refugee camp, huh?"

Bastion bent their knees and beeped happily. She couldn't help but smile a little wider. It had been… Her smile faded quickly at memories of Florence resurfacing in her sleepy mind.

That smile.

That _beautiful_ smile.

Those freckles crinkling around her eyes when she laughed.

She shook her head and walked a little more briskly by Bastion, feeling irritation clawing at the walls of her mind as they whistled so cheerfully. It had been a while since friendly hands had been near her. Coldness. An arctic wind passed through the low streets and blew through her body, freezing her heart over just enough for thoughts to skate across, touching the surface but not taking fully.

She'd been enemy number one to all omnics - all people with modifications - all people like her.

How would they react to their killer staring them in the eyes?

The best thing for her to do would be to ignore everyone and disappear while Bastion's back was turned, but there was something about them that made her want to sit tight at least for a few minutes. Maybe it was their cheerful disposition in the light of so much terrible goings on for their people.

For Amélie's people too.

"I-" She began, but Bastion interrupted, pointing with a series of "doot"s and "dweet"s.

Amélie squinted, folding her arms and squinting in the direction of the clunky hand's pointing. Flickers of light rose up from the windows of a warehouse - a warehouse that, if in Paris, would have been repurposed into a nightclub, but this was apparently not a nightlife district. Those were further in the city proper, in those towering skyscrapers, with unconcerned youth milling around in these late hours.

That infamous old clocktower stood starkly against the sky, its circling yellow beacons calling attention to it in the dark, dark sky.

Bastion held open the rusty door, pushing aside a curtain between the inside of the doorframe and the door itself. Amélie could see inside, and she did not want to enter. The ragged people within looked more than a little worse for wear. There was no stink associated with the poverty of the streets from this far outside, but Amélie's nose protested two steps before going in. Dust and dirt and grime had been cleaned from the floor, but the scent of motor oil mingled with dirty bodies and burning food. The large, woodburning stove caught her off guard. She hadn't seen one since she was a little girl - a literal little girl, not the little girl of her faded memories, and even then, she'd only seen them in museum-like houses and the oldest of the elderly. Sometimes they were only aesthetic pieces, but she'd never seen one functioning.

It provided light in the dark dampness and cold seeping through the warped glass windowpanes. Bastion beeped impatiently, and Amélie took a tentative step inside. The street had been relatively dark, but the inside of this place was warmly lit with kerosene lamps and that central stove. Smoke laced through those other unpleasant smells, and to Amélie, it was the most pleasing of them all. She wondered how many scented candles it would take to make this place not smell like fear and squalor.

Most of the people inside were asleep on cots and together under piles of blankets. Pillows were few and dirty, and Amélie's heart panged.

Even in Talon, she had been allowed a mattress off the floor and a shower. She'd even been given meals - however revolting - to keep her body running. She didn't see anything here for them. All these people… Clustered together with nothing but the rags on their backs.

But it was a roof over her head.

And the fire in the central wood stove was as warm as the fire from the fireplace.

Two people - omnics - Amélie couldn't tell in the low light - shuffled by silently, and Bastion gave Amélie a small nudge toward a room at the end of the warehouse.

"What's back there?" She whispered, her voice tight and filled with fear.

She felt trapped, even with the door still open. The cloying smells and the clogging smoke filled her lungs with unpleasant cotton.

"Deeewooo…" Their voice sounded sad and empathetic, the bird on their shoulder tweeting in protest. "Dweet dweet dweet. Hee hee bwop."

Amélie's frown deepened. "I do not want to take anything from you, much less supplies that you need."

"Beeweeoweeoweeop."

Through the funk and the fog and the smoke - the groans of those in pain and the clinking and clunking of machinery - standing there next to a massive bastion unit meant to be extinct...

Amélie Lacroix's heart beat with soft warmth.


	34. Tubthumping

"What in the actual fuck…" Lena looked out over the burning, ever-growing desolate landscape of Hellhole, Australia.

In the distance, strangely catchy music faintly played from a black dot in the forefront of a large dust cloud. A very large dust cloud.

Her pace slowed as the vehicle ghosted over the hardpan, caked earth, spraying up a flare of red dust in its wake. She frowned, wishing that she'd been smart enough to make a face cover or buy one. She hated having one because of how it seemed to obstruct her breathing, but with this much dust and dirt and hellscape, she definitely needed to protect her lungs.

But _fuck_ she wanted a cigarette.

The black spot seemed to be drawing closer at an alarming rate, and she glanced down to check her chronal accelerator for a full charge in case she needed to flee.

Her uncertainty, in this place, was gone, replaced instead by an old, familiar curiosity and passion that she might have forgotten upon further stagnation. Her heart beat strongly and her limbs shook with mild fatigue. The sweat running between her breasts and down her back felt more than natural in this place with this calm excitement stirring her soul.

It was so hot, though.

She could deal without the heat.

She lifted her goggles from her eyes to the top of her head, pushing back the hair that clung to her forehead in sweaty lumps, and her hand went to the pouch on her backpack that held her water bottle. She needed to ration her water supply because of the long journey, but she'd been running for well over an hour and needed a quick rest.

She glanced around with that same curiosity only compounding as the craft drew nearer, truly looking for some sparse shade, but none could be found - not even on the seemingly endless horizon. The city was a mere speck behind her and a three day journey on foot waited ahead.

It wasn't safe for her to wander into a city and be noticed, at this point in her life, even though only a few years before she would have never thought twice about it. Making it through the airport without the mysterious woman was hard enough, even though there was little security.

The music from the rather large vehicle grew even louder over the roar of the car's engine. She, against her better judgment, waved it down.

The car sped along a little more, shifting its course to come directly toward her, and her heart thudded. The anxiety, the creeping vines of nervousness, began climbing down her throat. She placed a placating hand on her chronal accelerator and readied herself to run, pulling on her backpack straps with her free hand. She didn't want to pull a gun on these people unless she had to.

The truck was even bigger than she'd anticipated as it wheeled up by her, skidding to a stop only a few feet from her toes. The music seemed to shake the earth beneath her and to want to deafen her, but she held fast, raising up a sweaty arm in greeting.

The music cut.

 _Thank god._

And yet, the chorus rang in her head. It was going to take weeks for it to work its way out.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?"

Lena furrowed her brow, trying to decipher the strange accent. Hell, it wasn't even like the people she'd talked to briefly in the airport or heard on the street. This sounded…

Bad.

Rural.

Terrible.

 _Unintelligible_.

A gangly young man swung out of the truck, and the strong stench of singed hair and soot reached Lena's crying nostrils. She puffed out her cheeks and fought the urge to pinch her nose in disgust. Maybe it would have been better to take off while she still could. She swallowed her pride and tried to smile.

She'd never been particularly fond of Australians.

She leaned forward with her hand out in greeting, not wanting the man to get any closer, but he slapped her hand in a strange high-five and said in his boorish accent, "You look a little lost, mate. Need help gettin' back to the city?"

A great rumbling thunder came from the car, and for a moment, Lena thought that the engine had roared back to life of its own accord, but that's when she noticed an incredibly large, hulking man wearing a mask sitting in the driver's seat. How she missed him before escaped her like the small squeal she was want to deny. In the great rumbling of the giant's voice, she thought she deciphered, " **no time**."

She shook her head all the same. "No, lads, I'm heading off that way." She pointed into the desolate hellscape to the northwest.

The stooped, burning man tilted his head and wild hair to the side. "Don't make a lot of sense."

" _ **junkrat**_ ," the great voice from the car called in deep irritation.

"Wait, wait, _wait,_ " the stooped man chattered, to himself or to the massive man in the car Lena could not decide.

That nervousness started creeping up on her again. "I should… go."

Her last word was almost inaudible as the great man behind the wheel disembarked from the equally large truck, the whole of the thing jerking up what seemed about a meter. Lena knew that couldn't _possibly_ be accurate, but the whole scene was nearly cartoonish. If she hadn't started to get scared, she might have laughed.

The man - the beast - towered over the two of them, eclipsing the sun entirely. He looked down at her and grunted in a deep rumble that could only be compared to a summer thunderstorm looming on the horizon.

She blinked up at him, fighting the urge to squeak like the mousy thing she was, and quipped, "Well you're a big'n ain't ya?"

The great man's chest heaved, his giant belly doing much the same - tattoos shaking in an earthquake. A great, surprisingly pleasant booming came from the man, and the closest thing Lena could relate it to was a laugh.

"What do y'think, Roadie?"

The beast-man called Roadie laughed some more, resting his hamhock hands on his great stomach before grunting in response.

"We have a _mission_ , Roadie!"

Lena watched this tennis match with increasing nervousness, slightly abated by the man's laughing and still stoked all the same.

Roadie grunted.

"Aw, alright, alright, alright." The spindly, sinewy burning man shook his head. "You know I've got a soft spot for pretty things."

Roadie's grunt sounded more like a growl.

Junkrat, Lena assumed that was a nickname despite the description being so apt, turned to Lena and bumped her with his artfully crafted, mechanical hand. "Ain't I seen you before?"

Sweat prickled under Lena's arm as the sun beat down on them. "N-no? I'm not from around here."

"What's your name? I swear I've been you before."

Again, like a stupid, Lena blurted, "T _racy_."

The gangly man frowned, putting his fleshy hand to his pointy chin. "Hmm…" He snapped his fingers in a sharp pop. "I know! You look like that little thing from that Overwatch organization!"

The large man grunted. " **tracer**."

Junkrat stamped his peg leg, and Lena couldn't help but think that Angela could have done so much better on it. He then scratched his sooty hair and frowned again. "That's a coincidence."

Roadie growled again.

"Alright, _alright_. I know we gotta go take care of this prick." He looked over Lena again, making her even more uncomfortable, and just as she was about to take her leave of the two strange beings in this strange land, Junkrat hunkered like an excited child. "We can't just _leave_ her here! All we know is that she's runnin' around out here by herself!"

" _ **jameson**_."

The jittery, singed one put his hands on his hips and thrust out his pigeon chest, his voice lowering comedically in mocking. " _Mako_."

Lena put up her hands in placation as the big man growled in his towering prowess. "Lads, it's been a _pleasure_ , but I gotta hop on over to Alice Springs as fast as I can."

" _Alice Springs_?" The lanky man - Jameson/Junkrat - squealed incredulously.

Roadie/Mako shook his head and started back to the car, slumping a little. " **get in**."

Jameson/Junkrat balled up his fists and jumped excitedly. "We gotta take care of this guy for a job, but then we can take you that far. No one should have to walk to Oodnadatta Track. Dangerous, dangerous."

Against her better judgment, feeling a little bit adventurous, she followed these two strange people.

She had to take the gangly man's blackened hands to climb up in the car and was amazed at the duo's dexterity. Roadie cranked the vehicle - not really a car and not really a truck, sort of an amalgamation of the two mixed with a lot of plates and spikes, and the music started blaring.

But, this time, her heart felt light. Her worry about the road ahead felt distant, maybe drowned out entirely by the insidious tunes.

 _I get knocked down_

 _But I get up again_

 _I said you're never gonna keep me down_.

* * *

Going down the road at such high speeds, wind in her hair, goggles over her eyes, her heart felt… elated for the first time in a very, very long time.

She stood, looking over the windshield and howled a laugh as they approached Melbourne. Cars swerved. People yelled at the car going well over the speed limit.

She didn't know where they were going or what they were doing, but she didn't really care. She could let them do whatever they wanted, and she would wait in the car while they worked. She didn't rightly know if she trusted these two. They looked more like criminals than anything, and some faint memory tickled her mind, but it was so buried underneath the haze of that time's sedative. The drug of this elation though… she could forget that strange tickle for at least a time.

Hell, she thought she might even call home. It'd been too long. She spent extra time in Melbourne to try to get oriented and figure out what she was going up against, but trying to do all of this on her own was entirely too difficult. She was going in mostly blind despite trying to dig around for the better part of two weeks.

She'd put more permanent dye in her hair and prepped for the time. She'd also rested in hotels and ate well - something she'd been unable to do before her unanticipated plane ride. In a way, she supposed she could thank Sombra.

A cloud rolled over her, remembering the woman's dark words. " _I meant nothing by it."_

Then why would she say it?

 _She said a test_ … Lena sat down, no longer enjoying the wind and the roar of tumping music and pulled her knees to her chest in the passenger seat next to Jameson/Junkrat.

He jiggled his legs and his eyes were wide, ever more looking more like a child. She wondered how old he was. The harshness of hsi surroundings might have made him look older, but there was something in his eyes that made Lena wonder if he could be as young as Hana.

She jerked herself out of her thoughts, trying desperately not to slip back into that contemplative state that nearly destroyed her only a few weeks before. She yelled over the music, her voice straining a little. "What are you going to do?"

Junkrat smiled with what looked like too many shiny, white teeth. His eyes glittered, and she saw the hairs on his arms stand up. "We're going to blow up a suit's building."

Her heart skidded, shuddered, and thumped erratically. "What?"

The skinny man couldn't have heard her but read her lips. "He set us up to fail _and_ get arrested when we were just trying to do some honest work, but we aren't about that life. We're the _Junkers_ , and we won't work for no suits anymore. We went and made that mistake two too many times!"

Lena swallowed. She didn't know if this would be good for her image, so she decided that she'd remain unseen for the time.

The dirty, little man's eyes gleamed in the roasting sunlight. "Ever seen a building go up? Kaboom. It's _gorgeous_."

Lena frowned. "What about the people inside?"

Junkrat made loud fart sounds with his mouth. "What? Blow up the building with people inside? What are we? Barbarians?" He shook his head and shuffled around as the music cut off suddenly. He rummaged between the seats and pulled out a plastic rectangle with two holes equally spaced with plastic teeth. A flimsy brown tape seemed to run over the top. Junkrat rammed his pinky finger in one of the holes and twisted, the tape running thin on one side of the device and growing in a large circle on the other side. He shoved it in a strange slot on the car's dash. Loud music started up again. "Nah, mate, it's closed today. Company holiday."

Lena frowned, unsure of what the purpose of doing this would be. "Then why-"

Jameson/Junkrat smiled his toothy, wild-eyed fox smile. "We're sendin' a _message_."

Lena ran her hand through her hair, which was already beginning to feel slick with body oils and gritty from the desert trying to make her head a new biome. She supposed that she could be okay with some minor building demolition, especially if no one was going to get hurt.

Besides, it wasn't any of her business.

"Hey, you know you're kinda cute."

Lena squinted at the scrawny, ragged puppy of a man. "No thanks. I'm gay."

Jameson/Junkrat blinked a few times. "Is it contagious?"

Roadie/Mako laughed his deep, bellowing laugh but said nothing. Even in this short time, Lena picked up that he probably didn't talk much.

She didn't answer the scrawny man's question, thinking it might be best if he was a little bit afraid of her.

The car began rolling to a stop in front of a monolith of a building gleaming in the sunlight, all glass and steel. Lena suddenly grew nervous about the strange men's intent. Even if there weren't _people_ in the building, blowing up such a massive structure with so much deadly material would hurt almost everyone around the place.

" **demolition style**."

Lena looked up at the masked man, just now noticing that his mask looked eerily like some post apocalyptic pig mask. It kinda gave her the heebee jeebees now that she was looking at it closely. The leather around the constructed snout was scarred and faded like a face that had seen the sun too much and had seen too many bar fights.

The man's greying hair bounced as he cut off the car and barreled out with strange grace. Lena felt her ass disconnect from the seat when he left the vehicle, which jumped up with almost tangible excitement at being free from this large man. Junkrat started clicking a few capsules on his sparse vest - they were like modified gun belts - and lept from the car, clear over Lena.

He waved, trotting off after Mako/Roadie and yelled, "Be back soon. Keep the car running."

She nodded and gave a little wave, watching them go down the street.

Sitting there for another second, watching this squirmy, lanky boy of a man trotting next to a massive beast. For the first time in a while, watching the two men go, her phone felt heavy in her pocket.

She wriggled around and pulled it free, her sweat making pulling out the small thing a little harder than usual, but she managed well enough without flinging her phone to the far end of the coast. She clicked it open, narrowing her eyes at the holographic screen and frowning. She had a missed call from… Hana…

Her heart sank.

As much as she didn't want to admit it, she'd been enjoying herself away from all the others and the sense of impending doom. Something about them all had changed, she thought. But then again, maybe she'd been the one that changed, closing herself off and refusing to tell anyone her thoughts or plans.

Fareeha had been right all those months ago - she was selfish. She didn't want to rely on others, and she wanted to do everything on her own. She wanted to be _strong_ enough to handle everything and protect everyone.

She felt a sad smile settle on her cracked lips. That's exactly what Angela wanted.

But it was hurting Hana.

Biting her lip, she thought over her options.

Without thinking, though, she asked, "Hey, Athena, can you give me any details on what's up at home?"

 _Home_.

Her phone's slightly blue tinted screen wavered into Athena's logo. "Is that a command?" Athena's voice was cold, distant, and flat.

Lena winced. This wasn't the first time she'd tried to talk to Athena, but she didn't know how to fix it. "No, it isn't…" She sighed. "Sorry for botherin' you."

Athena's logo remained for another long second before she asked, "Do you desire me to take my leave?"

Lena shrugged. "You can do whatever you want. I won't make you do anything you don't want to do." She looked back over at the great building only a block away. "I do have another question, though, if you're willing to help me out?"

Athena remained silent but didn't come back with venomous chill. That was a good sign, at least. Right?

"Why do those two seem so familiar?"

The smallest tint of humor colored Athena's voice. "Mako Rutledge and Jameson Fawkes, also known as Roadhog and Junkrat." She paused for a long moment, and Lena could almost hear the smirk in Athena's voice. "Lena, they're Australia's most wanted and are wanted in twenty countries."

And then a deafening roar and groaning metal rang out, a cacophony of shattering glass and crumbling concrete.

Two figures were running, the gangly jangle of Jameson Fawkes contrasting so entirely with the lumbering Mako Rutledge.

" **THE CAR.** "

Lena fumbled her phone and launched herself over the bench seat, twisting the key hard enough to break it off in the ignition, but it didn't shatter like she thought. The car rumbled to life and belched smoke out the tailpipe. Junkrat vaulted over the side of the car again with agile speed even with his mechanical leg, and Roadhog saddled in on the other side, Lena caught between them both.

They sped away, and Lena realized that Athena was still up.

"What did I get myself into, A?"

"An adventure, it seems." The humor so thick in her voice that Lena didn't know how she stuffed down her laughter bubbling just under the surface.

Athena clicked off.

Lena rolled her eyes, smiling, and looked at the men next to her.

Maybe she could deal with a little bit of crime in her life.

* * *

About two and a half hours later with the sun beginning to dip down behind some furtive clouds near the horizon, Lena and the two men, who she decided to call Roadie and Jameson, arrived around Stawell. She'd planned to drift through the place on her own, but it would have taken still a few days to get there - not three hours.

Somehow, Lena convinced Jameson to turn off his blaring music and let them ride in silence, no matter how fidgety. She managed to deter the incessant questions with turning them around. With that, she learned that the two of them came back to their motherland to finish business with a few people and places before going back out into the international world to continue their spree.

"Why do you do what you do?" She asked, genuinely interested.

There was something deep within her that felt unsettled with the two of them - suspicious and traitorous, even. These were the type of people that she wanted to _fight_ and protect people from, but they were still sitting there listening to bad music on weird tapes and talking about the finer points of plushies.

These guys…

These guys were what she wished crime really looked like. All things considered, they weren't even doing anything particularly bad - taking out big shots stealing from the people around and siphoning off of the weak. Disenfranchising the unfortunate. Killing the people slowly and insidiously.

But then again…

Maybe she was just trying to present major powers the way Sombra was.

Maybe Sombra had gotten too far in her head.

"Tracy, hel _lo_."

She blinked a few times, leaning into Roadie by accident. He grunted and she pulled away sheepishly. "What?"

"Why y'got that thing on your chest?"

Lena frowned, unsure how to respond. "Aesthetic."

Roadie laughed again, and with every laugh, he was becoming less fearsome.

James frowned. "What's that mean?"

Lena rolled her eyes and thought she felt Roadie's eyes on her, but she couldn't tell .

They didn't sleep in any civilized portion of the sparsely populated town but instead stayed the night in a windowless warehouse with the cooling night air drifting in as surely as mist. Lena was almost grateful, but the hard floors made her frown. She had no bed roll nor anywhere to procure one. She declined Jameson's and decided to go for a walk around the town. She'd come back and hole up somewhere… probably on a ledge far enough away from the two to not be immediately afraid of them getting to her. Quite frankly, she would have been more comfortable sleeping in a hotel with locks on the door, but if she was going to be in this long haul, she might as well bestow a little trust on them.

She snorted to herself as she slipped out the door of the abandoned warehouse.

She could trust two men that she'd just met that were wanted criminals, but she had trouble trusting the people that should have been closest to her. Somehow. That just seemed more par for the course than anything about this trip.

Lena trotted down London Road and smiled to herself, a twisting pang striking her heart as the thought about roving around the seedy underbelly of the London night. Beating up punks and delinquents and getting in trouble with her flight master. Getting accosted by people bigger than she could really manage and still fight on.

She took the slight left onto Patrick Street and kept going. She should hit something around Main, but she was only vaguely aware of the ambiguous directions Jameson had given her. She paused at an intersection, noting the few cars rumbling down the road, and pulled out her phone while loitering on this street corner.

"Hey, Athena, you there?"

Her phone did not immediately blink to Athena's logo, making Lena bite her lip. She supposed she deserved this treatment from her once-beloved AI. She'd been a bit of a-

"Yes?"

Lena jumped and nearly dropped her phone. "Oh, uh."

Silence.

The question had temporarily been startled out of her, but it clicked back into place like a flat Lego. "Can I ask for some advice?"

There was a long pause before Athena's voice, which had been so coldly monotone, came in wavering uncertainty. "As a friend or as a device?"

Lena fell silent, unsure of how to even answer. That clammy, sweaty hand of guilt slapped her across the face, remembering clearly - in vivid detail - the wind that nipped at her face as she turned, stinging her eyes just as much as the tears that fell after her confrontation with Athena.

"I've… never wanted anything other than friendship with you, A." Lena looked away, knowing that Athena could probably see her. "What I did… What I did was…"

Some punk yelled at her from a topless car and threw something at her feet.

Athena hissed in disapproval but not at Lena. Other than that, though, she didn't respond to Lena - not about her first question about a question or about her half-assed, whole-hearted apology. Things would take time to mend the rift between them, if it could be fixed at all, and being on the outs with Athena for a little over three weeks had its problems. Most of all, though, Lena missed her friend. Her friend that she'd ignored and treated poorly since Florence.

Since Amélie returned to her life.

Amélie had distracted Lena from a lot of important things, including fostering her relationships with her loved ones, but they understood… Right?

She sighed in Athena's silence. _Clearly not._

"What do you request?"

Lena shook her head, trying to clear it in some futile and symbolic effort.

 _I need to talk to that woman again. I need to know who I can trust,_ whispered part of her.

The other part of her, though, cried out like it had had its arm twisted to the point of dislocation. _CALL HOME_ , it cried, and tears started up.

"I-" Lena sighed, accepting this split. This burden of this journey. She'd have to make a choice, and it looked like only one would be wise.

She obviously couldn't trust Sombra, even though Sombra seemed to be the only person in the entire world with at least a single clue as to what the _fuck_ was going on, but Lena didn't want to be completely dependent on this shady figure.

She decided to call home instead.

"Do you think you could get me in touch with home?"

"What?" Athena asked a little too quickly to convey disinterest. She abandoned the cold shoulder ship then. "Are you coming home?"

Lena shook her head. "No, no, I don't think I'm up for it. Still gotta bust this Talon base and ransack it. Gotta keep the boys in check. Gotta lay low. Too much moving in high surveillance areas would be bye-bye-free-world."

Lena could feel the disappointment emanating from her phone, and she walked onward, hoping desperately for a pub and a quiet place to sit for a while. She'd have to go back to the warehouse at some point, but she wanted to put it off for a while longer.

"Before you do, A, I have another question. Feel free not to answer."

Athena remained silent in response, and Lena rolled her eyes with a small smile. At least some feedback was slipping through the cracks even if it wasn't completely consistent or even willing at times.

"What do you think of Sombra?"

Athena was silent for another moment, as if thinking. "I think that she would hear me say what I wish to say, and therefore, I do not wish to answer."

Lena couldn't help the lopsided smirk spreading on her lips. "You think she's a snarky weasel, too, don't you?"

With the thickest amusement Lena had heard in over three weeks, Athena replied, "Those are your words, Lena, not my own."

That cold, clammy feeling abated by the heat even in the night air dissipated almost entirely as she barked a laugh. "I had a similar feelin', ya know. I'm not complete garbage when it comes to reading people." She paused. "At least, not all the time, even though I do a piss poor job most of the time."

Athena didn't respond, but it didn't feel like icy-taloned uncertainty, fear, and loathing anymore. Sure, the undercurrent of mistrust still ran thick, but there was something a little easier about this silence.

"Would you still like me to call home for you?" Athena asked without the slightest malice.

Lena shook her head. "No… Not yet… Maybe in a little bit. Just don't let me forget."

"I wouldn't dream of it."


	35. How Are You True

Slight pain with an itch shot through Hana's finger, making her suck in a breath. She almost instinctively dropped the stack of papers in her arms but, at the last second, managed to keep her faculties about her. There was something there that made her want to scream and crawl into bed over a tiny papercut, but then again, she _did_ drip and smear those tiny droplets of blood on her blueprints. Satya _needed_ those to be immaculate, and Hana was quickly running out of ink.

She sighed and looked over at her monitor. Lúcio was sitting there with Satya, reading over some extra notations added to schematics. What they were doing felt impossible but necessary, and somewhere deep in her mind, she wondered if anything they were doing was going to be worthwhile or just a big mistake with a lot of fallout.

"Satya, I smudged these."

The elegant woman wrinkled her nose and then looked up, her eyes widening. "Hana, you're _bleeding_!"

Hana shrugged. "Only a papercut, sorry."

Satya shook her head. "No, no. No need for apology. They will be fine. I will re-annotate them. Please, disinfect that before it gets too germy." Her thin lipped smile almost seemed judgmental, but Hana knew that it was concern and an inability to look any other way.

Hana did as she was told, contemplating how the three of them had become such a tight-knit group so quickly. Something inside her rustled when she thought of Lúcio, Satya, and herself, but she was almost afraid to say anything.

Almost.

She thought she could see it there in the quiet blushing of the other two matching her own. Their laughs and their concerns all melding together, and Hana wondered if she was just desperate for companionship or if she really felt something _else_. She smiled to herself as she washed her hand and pulled out a box from under the sink for a bandaid. Since Lena had been gone…

Her heart sank.

She'd thought about her less and less as time went on. She'd spent the first several nights without sleep. Nights? No. She'd spent almost a week wide awake, unable to find respite until she'd started regularly communicating with Lúcio and Satya. They'd been integral to her survival, as much as she didn't want to admit it. These three weeks had given her so little rest… So little reprieve…

Lena was gone, and she could have been dead, as far as anyone knew.

But…

Something told Hana that Lena was far away doing dangerous things with dangerous people. That'd been why Hana developed a crush on Lena in the first place. Lena knew, but she declined Hana's affections. Eventually, they'd become close friends, and now…

Now, Hana didn't know who Lena was to her. Once, she'd idolized Lena and Lena's willingness to put herself between everyone and a battle, and now, it just seemed stupid and childish. Why did Lena want to endanger herself so badly? Why didn't she want to rely on her teammates? Didn't she _trust_ them?

 _Doesn't she trust_ _ **me**_ _?_

These thoughts sometimes still kept Hana awake, but it was working well into late January, and they had to keep moving as a group on their new project.

A decisive victory had to be made in Brazil or else, they might lose one of their biggest allies in that part of the world. The whole of the United States, with the exception of a few minor states, rejected Overwatch. They'd been taken over by Talon, but then again… Talon wasn't Talon anymore even though they operated under the same name.

She didn't know what the others knew since they insisted on keeping things from her, but she wasn't about to go spread a panic. It was well understood that Reyes would take over Talon eventually, but Hana was sure that it had already happened. The troops moved differently. The messages being sent changed their code, making her spend three days trying to crack it before she roped in Satya to try to help. Together, they'd managed to decipher the majority of messages, but learning a new code had taken entirely too long and so many messages slipped by.

Hana was only one person.

Winston had been trying desperately to reconfigure a satellite still in orbit, making it able to do what they needed it to do.

They were building a teleporter.

Unwillingly, Hana let Torbjörn look at her mech and her schematics and her personal alterations. She'd not had a backup since she'd been with the Korean army, and her own needed quite the tune-up.

The Overwatch team, as big as it was now, would take off to help Lúcio and Satya and the people's rebellion against their leaders. Hana was realistic. She didn't think Lúcio would come with her once it was all over. Quite frankly, she was enjoying these moments as best she could since she couldn't fathom their relationship lasting past this section of their lives.

No matter what she really wanted.

She would pay like she always did.

She looked down at her finger and then up at the mirror in the collective bathroom. Her hair was thin. Under her eyes was dark. She looked underfed and malnourished. She barely looked like a living person. She looked like…

 _Maybe Lena would like me more if I looked like this all the time_.

She shook her head. Thinking about Lena wouldn't do anything except make her sad. The only option was to keep moving forward and not thing about the drawing-ever-nearer dissolution of her relationship.

Her thoughts turned back to the sunshine happy man that called her his love and wondered how an insecure youth could ever keep his eye. She wondered how Satya could blush and laugh at her jokes. She wondered how they could all look at each other that way and still call themselves friends.

Exhaustion rolled over Hana like a pounding wave. She needed sleep soon. She was running on about three hours of sleep and eighteen of being awake. But then again, she didn't want to sleep and miss that precious dwindling time with Lúcio.

Then again, she couldn't see why it mattered.

She was tired.

So very tired.

In so many ways.

She wandered back down the hall and waved tiredly at a passing Angela, who smiled in her quiet way and moved on. Everyone had changed since Lena had gone.

Everyone had become more distant.

Like they knew that the mass grouping of them all would eventually dissolve.

Lena had just started the process.

She slipped back into her room and found Lúcio and Satya laughing at something.

"Hana, you won't believe this. Okay so, this guy…"

Hana smiled and sat back down at her desk while Lúcio intermittently laughed and told his story. She might not have long left, but that was no reason to not enjoy what they had now.

* * *

"Lulu?"

"Yeah?" Lúcio smiled his brilliant smile and someone walked behind him, pausing.

Though it was slightly muffled, she heard. " _What did she call you?_ "

Lúcio answered back in his native tongue, and Hana thought she could pick out something like "She doesn't _know_ what that means!" But she did. She laughed for a second, but gravity soon washed back in like a gentle wave of boulders falling from a high place.

Her smile faded. "Can I talk to you about something like… really important?"

Lúcio waved the man on and turned back to Hana with a faint blush. "What's up?"

"Lúcio…" She bit her lip. She didn't want to talk about it all, but if she left it alone, it would keep eating at her. She made a sound between an "argh" and an "eugheghhuegh."

His eyebrows knit together and he frowned. "Hana, we don't have to-"

She put up a hand to which he stopped talking. "Lúcio, are we okay?"

He pulled away from the screen a little, eyes wide. "Of course?"

Her stomach twisted and her heart sank with the words on her tongue. "What happens after this?"

Lúcio wheeled back and ushered himself to just offscreen, probably to one of his other desks and returned with a box on his lap, which he set on his desk in front of his camera. She watched his muscular arms and admired the way he carried himself with or without his leg-suit. Apparently, at some point, Angela had made it for him after the accident he'd had, which was so similar to the explosion he'd saved her from. Sometimes, she wondered if he hadn't saved her if he would still be able to use his legs. Some kind of cosmic payoff, probably.

Before the accident, he'd rolled around on stage for fun, light up pants and weird glow lights on rollerblades, all for show. Part of Hana thought it was really cute. Another part thought it was a little more than ridiculous.

After the accident, he'd led a group… still disabled, yet somehow… to steal Vishkar tech. The tech had been a _much_ clunkier version of the legs he now used as an exoskeleton. He had to control the former set, more or less, with joysticks individually attached to each leg. He functioned that way for a good while until Angela had gotten ahold of him and _gently_ informed him that she could hook a nicer set to his nervous system.

For several weeks, Lúcio thought Angela was joking.

Then, she proved her stuff.

He didn't wear them all the time. When he was around a base camp, he preferred to roll around in his tricked out wheelchair, making himself a giant, glowing frog target.

"Hana?"

She looked up, turning red. The way he said it sounded like he'd said her name once before. "I know I'm being-"

He held up a hand with confident, understated power. Sometimes, she forgot he was a star and a leader. Sometimes, she forgot he was more than just… her Lúcio. "Hana, this box has everything you've ever sent me in it."

She blinked, heart skipping.

"I know you don't send things often, given that it's unsafe, but… I keep your letters. I keep those bits of paper with your perfume on them. I read over your notes almost every day, and I can never wait to hear your voice." He paused and went to another box, a larger one, and opened it. He pulled out a scrapbook, and the tension building within Hana burst in a bubble of shocked laughter. She couldn't imagine Lúcio sitting down and _scrapbooking_. He smiled at her. "Before you get ahead of yourself, Satya did this for me. She said that it was rude for me to just keep clippings in a box." He opened it and showed her the first page.

A newspaper front with Hana Song in Lúcio Correia dos Santos' arms, the heading reading **MUSIC IDOL AND FREEDOM FIGHTER RESCUES GAMING IDOL AND MILITARY ASSET.** She looked ridiculous, staring up at Lúcio as he raised his weapon overhead, sonic wave erupting and diverting a large bit of debris away from the two of them. She scoffed involuntarily, a pang of irritation eating at her suddenly. She was _no_ damsel in distress, no matter how anyone painted her. This looked like a B-grade _movie poster_ , not a newspaper frontpage.

Lúcio smiled warmly at Hana's noises of dissent and turned the page to a clipping of her flipping out of her mech, pistol in hand. It was a grainy, black and white picture, but it was still very clearly her. He flipped through page after page of her and her accomplishments, her trophies, her medals. Articles on the internet and newspapers alike.

Her lip stung, and she realized that she was chewing on it to the point that where it was already cracked split open and started bleeding. She relinquished her hold on it and sat there, looking down, unable to look up at the screen without showing her thoughts in her eyes and on her face. She sighed.

"I guess that… I'm just… worried that you won't want me when you don't need us anymore." She laughed at herself, her stomach rolling with anxiety and turmoil. It felt so _stupid_ to say out loud, but the fear was there, growing and feeding and getting too hard to bear alone.

"Hana…" He looked down, closing the book delicately and replacing it in its box. "I don't know why you would think that, but I can promise that I'm not going anywhere. I can promise that we're okay."

She didn't move or look back at him directly, instead watching him from her peripheral vision. She didn't trust herself.

That's what it really all came down to, wasn't it?

"Lúcio… I have to trust you."

He frowned. "Is this about Satya?"

Hana felt butterflies begin to swarm in her stomach when thinking about the beautiful lady. She had… some definitely weird feelings there, but that wasn't the issue at the moment. "Not right now, no." She looked back at Lúcio. "I'm having trouble feeling like I belong, that's all."

Her heart felt a little lighter, though, knowing that Lúcio still valued her like he did.

He scratched at his scruffy chin for a second before smiling wide. "Well, I can guess that everyone there values you and needs you and wants you around and…" He shook his head with that same warm, inviting smile. So different from the grim look of determination he had in that newspaper frontpage… "I know that _I_ want you around, and I _know_ that _Satya_ wants you around."

Hana opened her mouth to say something, and felt something hit the back of her throat. Her throat all but panicked and her lungs decided it was a great time to spasm. Ah, breathing in your own spit… She hacked for a few seconds before managing to take a swig from the water glass on her desk, and she took a breath before looking up red-faced and smiling. It wasn't a forced smile. The warmth from Lúcio ebbed some of the frosty chill in her heart and allowed the ground to thaw. It was easier to smile when talking to him.

Curiosity goaded her and poked at her, offering wonderful topics to choose for the turn of the conversation, and they all focused on the same thing. Something that he said… No… The way that he said it…

"Do you…" She covered her face, smiling more out of embarrassment now than happiness. Her middle and ring fingers rubbed at her tired, gritty eyes. She could use a nap. She could blame that as the root cause of her butterflies and her embarrassment. Her wandering thoughts that led her down a path to thinking about Lúcio's strong arms around her, his naked chest on her side and Satya there beside them, sleeping with her hair so undaintily disheveled. Her eyes widened at her own revelation, and her heart leapt into her throat. "I think I might have feelings for Satya."

Her heart beat loudly in her ears and her temples throbbed in time with that deafening drum beat. Lúcio sat back, shock on his face melting away into a warm, knowing smile. The pounding stutter-stepped and resumed. She loved seeing him smile like that. But… Wasn't he angry with her? Wasn't she being unfaithful? Wasn't she making trouble? Shouldn't she just be happy with having someone as good as he was to love her?

The pregnant silence burst, overdue.

"You have _no_ idea how relieved I am to hear that."

Hana just sat there for a moment, hearing the words but not registering them or _comprehending_ them. She could almost hear the squeaky hamster wheel turning in her mind furiously. That poor hamster was so shocked and startled that it just plain fell off the wheel, though. Her voice sounded distant and shaky to her own ears. "What?"

"Hana, I… I think I might, too?" It came out more as a question as the lovely young man on the screen looked away. He looked up sharply. "Not that I don't still have feelings for you I just-"

Hana dragged her hands down her face, that confused white space in her head fuzzing out and dissipating into clarity. And laughter. Genuine laughter. "Oh my _god_ , Lu, I know that."

Smiling, he looked away, his cheeks reddening. "I didn't want you to think that I didn't."

She reached for her water glass and nearly dropped it. Her hands were shaking. Then she realized that most of her body was shaking. Her laughs were shaky too.

Lúcio began laughing though he still looked away. "This has been so confusing for so long. I just…" He slapped his forehead. "Oh, _shit_ , I was supposed to call her tonight. We have plans to mobilize soon."

Hana's laughing stopped suddenly, but her body still trembled. "I can send her a message, if you want?"

He shook his head. "No, this is more important. Our relationship is more important."

Hana couldn't hold back her smile, though it was small and fragile. Hell, her _feelings_ were turned upside down and shaken in _boxes_ that said "CAUTION: FRAGILE."

"Lu, you think our relationship is more important than a revolution?" She couldn't help the sarcasm in her tone. That was who she _was_. She clenched her fist and looked down.

It had been so long since she felt like the person that she once was. It had been so long since she wasn't worried about dying all the time. It had been so long since she could sleep without being afraid. It had been so long since she could breathe without a massive weight on her chest…

It wasn't much… but admitting something was there within her when she looked at Satya… when she thought about them all together… Something about that lifted some of the weight off of her chest and made her gritty, tired eyes a little less heavy. Knowing that Lúcio supported it - felt the same, even - also helped enough to where she thought she might be able to sleep that night.

Words tumbled out of her mouth, the dam broken and unbidden. "Should we tell her?"

Lúcio shrugged. "I mean… maybe we should figure it out before saying anything."

Hana frowned, that heavy, cold, lead ball dropping back into her stomach. "I think I've figured it out in the last few minutes, and I think we should tell her."

That warm smile dissolved that angry pit in her stomach a little - a seemingly endless tide of ebbing and surging strong enough to make her feel a little sick through her giddiness.

They would figure _something_ out.

* * *

"I- I'm sorry, what?" Large, beautiful eyes blinked rapidly and shifted between two points on her screen, slightly off from the direction of her camera. Her hair fell lazily around her shoulders and softened the sharp angles of her face. Hana liked that look a lot even though she knew why Satya kept her hair pinned back most of the time except before bed.

"We…" Hana chewed on a nail for a moment under Satya's shrewd gaze. "We talked about it, and we thought it might be better if you knew rather than us just… being… creepy or something."

Satya didn't speak, just watched with wide, confused eyes.

Lúcio quickly added, "We don't really expect you to have any kind of thoughts about it yet or at all, really, but we couldn't just keep this from you since you're our teammate and having undisclosed feelings might…" He trailed off, uncertain.

"Fuck it up," Hana finished helpfully.

Satya barked a startled, nervous laugh. "I… do not know if I know how I feel about this. I might… need some time to consider this."

Hana waved her hands emphatically and, with embarrassment, noticed that the half-hanging bit of nail on her right middle finger flew all the way off and somewhere onto the carpet. "Go sleep on it. We kept you up too late."

Satya hesitated, reaching her hand out but pausing. "I want you both to… know… that this is new territory for me, and I… am…" She looked away, a feather-light blush tickling her cheeks. "I am very flattered. Please, get some rest tonight, and I will call tomorrow."

They all exchanged goodnights, and the screen showed a phone sitting in a cradle not a second later. Hana sat looking at the screen with fraying knots in her stomach threatening to become cepholopodian tentacles and climb out of her esophagus.

She typed a quick message to Lúcio.

 **[1/30 2:33 im p tired]**

 **[1/30 2:34 Do you want to go ahead and sleep?]**

Hana paused for a long minute, legs still folded up under her in her netted game chair. She fiddled with the mascot charm hanging from her headphone jack. Phones pretty much were custom made these days… It took out a lot of company gaffs and problems with marketing to have them custom ordered. She rolled the phone over in her hands casually, running her slowly steadying fingers down the back of it. She preferred something substantial for a communication device unlike Lena, who always preferred something more closely related to malleable hard light. Very much like her.

Her trembling fingers pressed gently against the back, stilling completely. She missed Lena.

Bad.

She flipped her phone back over and started a message.

 **[1/30 2:40 i think im gonna make a phone call]**

* * *

 _Brrp brrp. Brrp brrp. Brrp brr-_

"'Ello?" A pause. Heart fluttering. Panicked breathing after complete cessation. "Hana!"

Hana sat there breathless and confused. A familiar face looked back at her, but there was so much that was… different. Roots shone at the base of garishly pink hair that fell over artfully gapped eyebrows, too long from the way it was usually kept and too full of hair gel. Sweat beads glistened in the low, artificial light of what only could have been a bar.

"Lena…" Hana managed to whisper.

Her heart managed to jolt back to life.

"Hana, I-" Lena looked away, obviously looking at something or someone, muttered a thanks, and took a drink from the bar, sipping a little more of a slurp than a sip. "I wasn't expecting you to call. Is everything okay?"

"Lena… are you in a bar?"

Lena rolled her eyes. "If you can call it that. _Really_ I'm just sitting here waiting on a contact to show the fuck up. If she doesn't get here soon, I'm leaving." She furrowed her eyebrows and looked more serious. "Hana, what is it? You look…"

"Tired," Hana defended smoothly. Encroaching terror began creeping upon the edges of her mind. Why had she called? Why had she bothered? Why didn't Lena sound more…

Why wasn't she dying to come back _home_?

Lena frowned her trademark frown. "Hana, I know I haven't been the best or around, but if I know anything about you, that's a little more than tired. Is everything okay back h-" She stopped herself. "Back at base?"

 _She can't even bring herself to call this her home anymore…_

The sarcastic, bitter creature that constantly ate at her insides whispered to her. _She's abandoned you completely._

Hana shook her head. "It's been a long day. Satya, Lúcio, and I have been working on a teleport-"

Lena's eyes widened and her face paled even more than it was. "Hana, this line isn't secure."

Hana frowned. "What do you mean? Of course it-"

Lena shook her head gravely, looking a few years older than only moments before. "Overwatch isn't as safe as we thought. There's a bug inside Athena. A sleeping thing… Some kind of surveillance software that's practically untraceable, if I heard right."

Like a gas stove clicking then flaring to life, Hana's rage piqued. " _What did you say_." It was more of a command than anything else.

Lena blinked, and Hana felt her shoulders grow tight, her back rigid.

"You mean, you just _casually_ came across that information and were just going to _pass it to me like it was_ _ **no big deal**_?" Her voice wasn't loud. She usually raised her voice when she was angry but this was… Something much colder.

Passion usually drove outbursts for Hana, but this was something entirely different. It was a lot more focused than her usual outbursts. Much more precise. She _knew_ what made her angry in this moment.

"Hana, that's not-"

"But it's _exactly_ what you did." She fought herself to not hang up on Lena, knowing full well that she might not hear from Lena again after that. "Lena, you've just been _hanging_ me with things for _months_. Why can't you tell someone that can actually do something about it? Why come to me and just throw all your _shit_ on me?" She laughed incredulously in a scoffing huff. That chunk of ice that replaced the lump in her throat felt thick, hard, and unyielding. "Lena, they say _I_ act like a child. No, I don't think they've looked at you lately. I've been trying to hold everything together here, but everyone has lost hope. Jack has been talking about leaving. Angela has pulled away again. Genji insists that they need to leave to get back to…" Hana waved a hand impatiently. "Whatever they do. Jesse has been sulking ever since you left, and Mei is suddenly talking about going north to another outpost to look for environmental data. Zarya is talking about going with her." She pinched her nose and closed her eyes for a long moment. "What we need most right now is solidarity because of what we plan to do in Brazil."

Lena started waving her free hand frantically, eyes wide.

"Lena, I don't give a single _fuck_ if this line is secure or not. You need to know _what. you. did. to. us._ " Hana snorted and leaned back in her chair. "You don't think, Lena. You never have. I fucking looked up to you once, and I hope you know that. And I sure as _fuck_ hope you know that I don't now. You didn't even ask how I was. You didn't ask how I've been doing. You told me that I look bad." She paused, shaking her head. "Of _course_ I look bad, Lena. I've been pulling days and days with no sleep, and I lost my best friend to the fucking reality of who she is. I've been working with creepy Torbjörn day and night and his super fucking racist comments about my friends. I've found solid evidence of something that I've been chasing for over a year, now, and I can't tell anyone about it. I'm trying to hold this team together by myself because no one else seems to want to make the effort."

Her fist found itself pounding against her desk after every sentence and increasingly in intervals. Lena's eyes had started to water, but Hana didn't feel like stopping. That bitter flower blooming inside her was only fertilized by seeing that Lena could feel remorse in any way.

"You left, and we all fell apart. It's been… over a month since you disappeared, and this much damage has come this quickly." Hana shook her head, feeling that flower wilt as tears jumped from the corners of Lena's eyes and ran down her cheeks a little before she rubbed them away almost angrily. "I don't know how long you plan on being gone, Lena, and I don't know what will be left when… _if_ you get back."

Lena looked away, her too thin face seeming haunted from Hana's words. Her eyes seemed… darker. Her thin lips pressed together and wormed their way under her teeth at random intervals. She seemed so… haggard.

"Where even _are_ you?" Hana's voice felt so… accusatory even to her own ears.

Lena's voice was quiet and strained with forced cheer. "A pub."

The ice block that Hana's heart had become melted away. She folded her legs back up under herself. Her anger was usually short lived even if it _had_ been building for a long time. "Looks like you could use a drink."

Lena rolled her glassy, bloodshot eyes. "Yeah, you could say that." She remained quiet for a time, sipping on something that looked a bit watered down. "Hana, I'm sorry."

Hana shook her head, paused, then nodded. "You should be."

Lena winced, the pub's low light casting gruesome shadows over her sallow cheeks. "I know," she whispered. "I… talked with Athena about it, and I should have at least told you what I was planning to do instead of runnin' off like a bloody idiot."

Her accent seemed… thicker to Hana, which made Hana smile a little. She remembered watching clips of old Overwatch promos and hearing Lena's sweet voice and delightful accent, but over the years, it had flattened out considerably. Hana couldn't help but smile a little even though she was still mildly irritated at Lena.

Lena shrugged and blinked a few times, her brown eyes still watering from time to time. "I don't think this contact is gonna show up."

Hana frowned. "Should you go?"

Lena shook her head tiredly. Her shoulders slumped along with the rest of her posture. "I've been in this bar pretty much all night and most of today, love. 'Spose I should go and rest, but nah."

Quiet rolled over Hana, subtly and peacefully usurping her irritation in favor of a more contented regime. "Where are you sleeping?"

Lena blushed. "Uh, um… Well… You see." She laughed genuinely. "I _might_ be bummin' around with some internationally wanted criminals."

Hana's mind blanked for a second before she barked a laugh. "As you do."

Lena rubbed at her forehead before knocking back the rest of her drink and pulling on her jacket with one hand. "I mean, I'm bein' serious, mate. Right alongside these two fuckers, and I don't really know what's goin' on. Ran into them today and they just… Boop. Picked me up." She shrugged. "I was planning on running all the way to Alice Springs, but they decided they were going that way and would drive me instead. Cut my trip from several weeks into a few less."

Hana frowned. "Where?"

Lena shook her head, and her eyes turned to over her phone screen, presumably to the opposite side of the pub, and changed from their tired, glassy brightness to hard and suspicious. "Hana, I have to go."

The bitter flower inside Hana perked up a little. _Of course she does…_

"Yeah… I should sleep…" But Hana didn't really want to hang up the phone. "Lena?"

Lena looked agitated but spared a glance back.

"Can you promise that you'll call back soon?"

Lena nodded curtly as she opened her mouth, but a purring, caramel covered voice seemed to interrupt Lena's attempt to speak.

" _I'm surprised you waited this long to speak to me, querida. Oh, who are you talking to? Is it that sweet little plum Hana?_ "

Lena's jaw twitched in gritted teeth, and unease started twisting Hana's insides. She thought she'd heard that voice somewhere before, but where?

"Hana, stay safe. Don't forget what I said. Tell Winston." She smiled, but the dark look in her eyes unsettled Hana. They followed what was presumably the other voice's owner then lightened again. "And Hana?"

"Yeah?"

"I miss you, and I'm sorry for everything I've put you all through. Hollow words right now, but I'll be home as soon as I can."

Anxiety drilled away slowly with its twisting drill bit in Hana's stomach as the call clicked off with a low _beep beep_.

Hana looked at her bed longingly after a moment, but shoved herself out of bed. She needed to go relay Lena's message to the only one who knew Athena as well as herself.


	36. Changing

"Winston, what did she send you?" Angela rubbed at her eyes from under her frames and removed her reading glasses.

Jack leaned back in his chair, watching her, desperately trying to forget his argument with Jesse. Sometimes, he forgot the age difference between the two of them, and sometimes, that drove a wedge in their relationship - the understanding of a situation coming from two, too-different places.

Winston was too absorbed in his work to look up at Angela, and Jack thought he could relate entirely too well. Work had near damn killed him a few times from him being too engrossed, but he guessed that the same rules didn't exactly apply to Winston. Besides having a desk job, Jack figured that being about eight hundred pounds and genetically crafted into a hulking, talking, science-gorilla could change exactly what hardships this particular big guy faced.

Jack helped the guy out a little, "There's intel that there's a bug in Athena, if I saw the screen right."

Winston waved a hand, still vigorously typing with the one that had been glued to the keyboard for the last ten minutes or so since Hana had come in with the news. It was so late, but did anyone really have a sleep schedule anymore? Not really. Angela was clearly more than tired, but she'd been going over books for hours and wouldn't take direction from anyone about anything. Fareeha couldn't even "distract" her away from her work. She said she'd been procrastinating too much, and he couldn't exactly argue with that. But he knew. He knew that she was putting off creating the weapon that would _murder_ her first lover.

He knew Angela well - not just from watching her grow up, either. He'd been with her in her quiet moments where she'd grown to be his friend. He knew her fears… maybe not as well as he knew Jesse or as well as Jesse knew Angela, but Jack knew her well enough. Hell, anymore, he considered Angela a closer friend than Ana, and he'd been _very_ familiar with Ana. After he thought Ana died, he'd cut that part of himself out forcibly, and seeing her again brought up too many mixed and confusing feelings even though they would spend time together after her resurfacing. Their time together before going separate ways again hadn't been long even though they'd shared a Christmas together huddled down in a place, hiding from Talon.

He sighed. He'd obviously been around Jesse too much, getting in touch with his "inner feelings."

He snorted and shifted, his back aching from the old shattered pelvis and twisted spine.

Angela.

He could thank Angela for saving him.

He rubbed at his own eyes underneath his glasses and looked up at her shape. He couldn't see with too much definition, and it reminded him of old days of his childhood and the screens on the massive televisions from his grandmother's house where he pulled at strands of carpet while watching Saturday morning cartoons.

" _What am I going to do if you leave again, Jack?"_

" _Dammit, I can't be your_ _ **everything**_ _, Jesse."_

" _Well, you_ _ **are**_ _."_

He sighed again. It was already so late, but he sure as fuck didn't want to go back to the room he shared with Jesse. Damn… He was already started to pull away from them all…

Even the one he cared about the most.

He'd watched Jesse in a way that he'd watched Angela, but he never once anticipated this would happen - him in his sixties dating someone just shy of forty and worrying about their relationship. Wasn't this the kind of thing he shouldn't be worrying about at his age?

Right. Instead, he should be worrying about the fact that his former best friend and lover was out on the loose. Reyes was… far gone from what he once was. That dark potential had come to fruition and at the heaviest cost.

Jack should have been able to stop it. To slow it at the least. To stem this gaping wound in his soul.

But no, he'd let a child get tangled in Reyes' web and then let Reyes slip through his hands… He gave up and he didn't protect the people that he should have. That he _could_ have.

And Angela was one of those people.

Jesse was another, for that matter.

Jack broke the silence uncomfortably. "Winston, do you have any beers?"

Angela snorted. "You ask the one who can't get drunk if he has alcohol? Jack, dear, you're beginning to sound like me."

He rolled his eyes and caught some fuzzy feedback in his vision from the node temporarily shorting out. _Not even my damn glasses can handle my sarcasm… What a world._

On that note though…

"Yeah, you've laid off a lot, haven't you?"

Angela nodded. "Your boyfriend is a sloppy drunk. Put me off the stuff for a while."

A creak from the stairwell to Winston's room made heads turn, and Jack couldn't help but relax from unintentionally tensing up when he saw Hana standing sheepishly in the stairway.

"Hey, kiddo. Er, uh, Hana. What's up?" He mentally kicked himself because he fucking _knew_ how bad it messed with her.

She leaned against the bannister which creaked quietly. "Well, you're all going to be pissed, but I just got off the phone with Lena."

The background clacking ceased and necks practically creaked like an old screen porch door as they swiveled toward Hana.

"What?" Jack's stomach rolled upon hearing that slight wavering ghosting Angela's single word. She'd cried too much these months.

He was beginning to wonder if he was wrong about Lena. Then again, he knew he could never voice it. He was one of the last to believe in her out loud.

"She's in Australia, but she's safe." Hana pushed off with casual disinterest, but years of training and leading his squads set off some kind of Spidey-Sense for distress in his team.

"As long as she's safe," he found himself saying casually when he felt nothing even close to casual.

He was good about that, at least, and it was one of the only things he prided himself on. He could keep his cool when no one expected him to, but it also caused some problems - always had with Reyes. He shook his head, rooting himself in the present.

"As long as she's _safe_ , Jack?" Angela's voice was sharp. "She disappears, reappears, drops a line and casually mentions she's in _Australia_?"

Hana rolled her eyes, a motion Jack only barely caught with his glasses and minimal vision. "You really think Lena would come out and say it, Ang? Nah, I had to look up a few things. Dig a few places." She opened her mouth to start saying something else but stopped, and Jack wondered what she'd _really_ done to pick up that information but let it slide. It wasn't the time.

 _Sorta like the casual craving for existential death, but nobody really can dig that except Ana and Rein. Gabr-_ He cut himself off, remembering the laughter they'd shared about humor of their generation. Where was his _mind_?

The fight with Jesse had derailed his focus. That was one reason he was so wary of attaching himself to anyone or staying somewhere for too long, but Zenyatta had encouraged it. Now, he wished he'd just devoted himself more to finding Reyes and bypassed the monk entirely.

No, he didn't. Not really.

"Jack?"

He blinked and looked up at Angela from his scarred hands. He hadn't realized he was looking down. "Listen, Lena is gonna do whatever the hell she wants. Do we even really know why she left? We can speculate all day long but-"

"She's going to look for clues to find Amélie and try to find out about Talon's overthrow," interrupted Hana.

He looked over at her dark grey form on darker grey backgrounds with shifting light from Winston's computer. He didn't say anything. He didn't need to. Angela practically glowed in the corner of his vision, her hair catching the light like it did, and he wanted to take off his glasses. But he didn't. He could be blind to the world, but he was still too acutely aware that everyone was hurting.

"Talon's overthrow?" He found himself sitting up and looking a little harder at Hana. "What do you mean?"

Almost imperceptibly for him, the shadows around her obscuring her a little too much for clarity, Hana clenched her fist. "Reyes has taken over Talon."

"My child, did Lena tell you that?" Angela's voice was soft, but everyone except Winston, who was too absorbed in his work, noticed the tremor in her words.

Hana shook her head. "No, I found out through some… channels."

Jack grunted as he pushed himself up. "You got some names for these channels?"

Hana huffed like a small child. "Does it matter?"

Jack felt himself grumble. "A bit." He sighed, sauntering a bit to try to dislodge his boxers from directly up his asscrack without being too noticeable. "Listen, kid-"

"Jack-"

He put up a hand. "Hear me out. You're getting strangely specific information from some unknown source, and we're all in the dark except you. Now, I know you're pretty interested in this whole thing. Personal interest or whatever. But still. Looks fuckin' weird."

Hana sighed and slipped down the bannister to the floor. "I don't know who it is, but they've been giving me good intel so far."

He didn't like that.

"I don't like that, Hana."

Angela looked sternly at him, but he did his best to ignore her blazing eyes. He knew how blue they were, even if he wasn't wearing his visor. It was hard, but he managed, keeping his focus by thinking about Jesse's dark, hurt eyes as he spoke to Jack not even two hours before.

Fatigue weighed down his arms and legs and eyelids with heavy blankets of sleep fog. "I don't know what you want me to do about this at three a.-fuckin-m. I'm tired out my gourd and have to go make up the couch, so deal with it on your own, I guess."

Hana winced and looked away. His heart sank, but he wasn't really sure why. He'd never been particularly close to Hana except to share his old favorite movies and bands, telling her about the concerts and the life around it all. He sighed and let his knees creak as he sat back in the chair he'd appropriated for himself in Winston's gorilla cave. He could lie to himself that he didn't like being around everyone. He could lie to himself that he didn't like staying in one place for very long. He could even lie to himself about his feelings and his driving desires.

But he couldn't lie to himself about how he felt about Hana Song. Or Lena Oxton, for that matter. He had a soft spot for those two, even if he didn't agree with them. Maybe at one point in his life could he have understood and agreed and _supported_ each of them, but that was long left in his twenties and thirties. Time had not been kind to him, but it hadn't been kind to anyone in Overwatch. He'd watched Hana change in the short time he'd been around, shifting from a lighthearted sparkplug to someone who was much more reserved - much more worried and concerned with others and took too much time thinking about what she said and how it could affect those around her. He wasn't some two bit shrink, but he could clearly see that much. Leading and watching and cooperating with others for the better part of forty years taught him more than some book learning and a degree.

He sighed again, taking off his glasses and resting them on the chair's wide, worn arm. He could almost hear the node click off in his head, disconnecting from the contact in the glasses' temple tips. The shadows and light patches danced like a world of falling and shifting ash, never settling in one place for long and never making anything more than images like clouds in the sky - pareidolia, Angela had called it. She'd said that it would keep happening probably for the rest of his life, considering he'd had sight for the most part and could also see in intervals with the assistance tech she'd made.

He wouldn't let her fix his eyes.

Some part of him, even though the rest of him knew it was Talon's fault for what happened to Gabriel, was afraid that she would do something to him to make him see more than he should. Or that they'd just fall out of his head useless. It was a ridiculous fear, but one that was there nonetheless. He'd watched her reconstruct bodies out of mere organs. He'd watched her give sight to those who had always been blind and care for them afterward to ensure they didn't become depressed. He'd watched her practically stab someone in the chest to save their life and _succeed._ But he still didn't want her to touch this part of him. He was too stubborn, really.

He knew that deep down he still had some strange fear instilled in him when he was about twelve by watching a weird musical where a character stabbed out their own eyes. He'd made Hana watch it and laughed about how stupid it was with her, but the eyes… that still fucked with him. He really did trust Angela, though. He trusted Angela with his life and more - Jesse's.

 _Oh, Jess._

He dragged a hand down his face and sighed. He really needed to sleep before he fell in a bottle somewhere, which he hoped would have been there with Jesse, but no, not tonight of all nights. Not when they'd fought about staying _together_.

He'd been a damn fool, and there was nothing he could do to change it.

A voice like Zenyatta's played in his mind. _You should talk to him_.

He mocked the voice back in his own head. _Talk to him, schmalk to him_.

He was tired, obviously.

And even still, Angela needed him to look at some specs for a rifle, which he was more than a little tempted to tell her to shove up her ass or let Winston do it. He didn't know sniper rifles. He sure as hell didn't know how to _build_ them. Ana probably knew more than all of them combined and would probably give even Athena a run for her money. Whatever… coin bullshit that was. _Fucking hell, do they even still have coins?_

"Ang?"

Angela, who had been talking increasingly faster, fell silent abruptly. He'd tuned her out so hard that he barely noticed when she stopped.

"I know you and Winny boy and Athena and the kid don't need to sleep. Hell, most of you people don't, but I'm old so I do." He stood, feeling for his glasses for a second and closing his eyes to put them back on, then opened them and look her dead in the eye. "I still need to make up the couch like I did five minutes ago, so if you don't mind…"

He shoved his way past and vaguely noticed Hana pointing and waving to Angela and him. He did his best to ignore her. There wasn't a lot he could do at this point. He needed some rest and some recharging.

* * *

He didn't get to rest as soon as he wanted.

Ana sat perched on the couch back - a habit she'd had since she was young… since they were all young really. He remembered their superiors letting it slide because she was the best sniper they had and a few quirks wouldn't hurt anyone. That was one of the great things about Overwatch before the collapse… and one of its flaws. He'd always seen that from a military perspective. No, he'd never approved of indoctrination and breaking individuals to make them part of a bigger organism, but he didn't understand the… inconsistency and lack of uniformity that Overwatch seemed to ignore.

He looked at the tiny woman perched on the couch back and sighed, remembering her black hair spilling over her shoulders and hiding her face, streaked with tears - remembering how she could cry and seem to break and pull herself together as if it had never happened, only letting her guard fall around a select few, but now, she never seemed to let her guard down, not even with Reinhardt.

The impish look in her eye distracted him from this though.

"What?" he grumbled. "Gonna watch me sleep like Gabe?"

She shook her head and wrinkled her nose. "Heavens, no. I came to laugh at you."

He raised his eyebrow and scratched his scarred chin, reminding himself to shave as his nails scraped across cactus-like stubble.

"You're in the doghouse."

"Oh my god, Ana." He hung his head, but a smile on his lips couldn't be held back any more than he could be genuinely irritated with Ana. He supposed he still loved her and could never _really_ expect her to be anyone other than herself - a nosy woman with a pension for being a little more than forceful at times, especially when she wanted information. This was one of those times. She would worm the story out one way or another. "Yeah, I guess. Got in a fight. I lost."

She tsked at him and patted the spot next to her. "You tried to be a hard man, and it didn't work out for you, so when you softened up and tried to become hard again-"

"Hey, you never complained."

She smiled wickedly. "This is true. You and Gabriel both were often…"

Jack waved a hand dismissively, feeling a blush threatening to show on his face. He couldn't afford to show _that_ kind of weakness to Ana. She'd exploit it in a heartbeat at the most inopportune time. "What were you saying?"

She smirked, and he knew that he'd been found out anyway. "I was saying that once you allowed yourself to be who you once were, you found someone else who loved that part of you."

"Woah, hey, I never said this was about Jesse."

She smiled her smile that was so rare - the one where her eyes sparkled and her teeth showed. "You never said it wasn't, and I wasn't sure why else you'd be sleeping on the couch." She paused, side-eyeing Jack with her smug look. She looked so feline when she did that - looking so smug, content, and ravenous all at once. She could easily see how Fareeha's expressions took after her mother's in moments like these. "Correct me if I'm wrong, dear."

He sighed in defeat and shook his head. "I said I was thinking about leaving."

Ana rolled her eyes. "Go apologize, and save your back some of the trouble."

He raised an eyebrow.

"You know I never dance around the matter, Jack. I never have."

"Sharpshooter in so many ways."

She smiled, but it was less joyful than before. "I guess so."

He sighed. "What happened to us, Ana?"

She held her sad smile. "We got old."

He elbowed her strong leg and chuffed. "This old dog still has a few tricks. What about you?"

Her smile was still sad, but her eyes twinkled knowingly. "I never stopped learning them, Jack." She paused. "Now, go apologize to your boyfriend."

 _Which one? Mine or ours?_

He hated himself for thinking it as soon as the thought surfaced.

* * *

The making up didn't go as well as Jack had wanted, but it happened either way. At least he wasn't sleeping on the couch that night.

He lay awake, listening to the central heating woofing, and Jesse's soft snores brought him some kind of comfort though Jesse's back was turned away from Jack. After an hour of sleep eluding his grasp, he wondered if Hana was still awake. Sometimes, when he couldn't sleep, he'd go find her and watch his old favorites with her. They weren't close by any measure - not that he'd want that, specifically. ( _That's a lie and you know it, old man._ ) That would only hurt her more once he left. But… There was something comforting in sharing his old favorite things from a simpler time - a time before superheroes were more than just people on a screen with good costuming and a fuckton of CGI. He still wasn't very old when he'd undergone his supersoldiering, and at the time, he thought it would make him like the people in the movies, and in a way, it had.

But there were very big drawbacks.

Drawbacks the old movies never talked about.

This brand of hero got older but aged much slower. This brand of hero had incredible abilities that wore away over time but never fully diminished. This particular brand of hero could open the way for fantastic discoveries and unimaginable feats, but this hero could also open the way for terrible things to happen.

He'd been responsible for one of those things. The last thing.

And that heat death was coming quickly if he didn't do something about it.

He rolled over in the darkness, his glasses on the table beside him, and lay a tentative hand on Jesse's back, the steady rise and fall bringing him little comfort in the light of what he needed to do - his knowledge of firearms in combination with Ana's knowledge of ranges and types would help out greatly for Angela's research. Angela would have to create something in combination with Winston's forcefields and electrical pulses to interrupt Reyes' molecular shifting. So much was at stake and so many variables were still unseen to. He could help little without the brunt of the work already being done by Angela, but he could still contribute a little. He started mulling over his options while he lay awake, and he decided that the time had come for him to get off his ass and start helping in a productive way.

Being afraid of killing Gabriel…

Hadn't that been what was holding him him back in the first place? He could blame Angela's fear if he wanted.

He moved his hand down Jesse's clothed back and felt the ropey scars under his shirt. He'd had a hard life, and Jack couldn't blame him for having some problems with abandonment. He wouldn't leave Jesse now. This tipping point…

This was the tipping point that everyone had been waiting for.

Mei and Zarya would have to go to Ecopoint Antarctica for some of the cryo-freeze technology they would need for afterward. They needed to be sure that if it didn't kill Reyes, they could at least injure him enough to capture him and put him on ice.

Everyone had their place now.

Everyone had their own mission.

Everyone except Jesse.

He was just… floating.

And he needed Jack's stability now more than he had since they'd met again.

He wasn't sure when he'd fallen asleep, and maybe he'd been in some kind of sleep purgatory, able to think and plan even if it was a meandering path, but eventually, he slipped off into a memory steeped sleep.

" _That kid is a_ _ **fucking waste of skin**_ _, Gabe." Jack wiped at his bloody nose. "That lowlife won't amount to anything. Give him a choice? Gabriel, you want to give him a_ _ **choice?**_ _Of course he's going to save his own skinny, pale ass."_

 _Gabe didn't smile, and there was no humor in his voice - a rarity considering he was in one of the most badass sub-organizations in Overwatch. Ana leaned against the wall by the door where a skinny rascal brooded._

" _I'll give him a choice, and I'll be responsible for him."_

 _Jack grumbled and saw Ana push herself off the wall. "I think he has a point, Jack."_

" _You can do whatever you want with him, but I_ _ **doubt**_ _he can be reformed. We can't have a renegade in Blackwatch, and you know that."_

 _Gabriel smiled and put a hand on Jack's shoulder. "Just because he decked you doesn't mean he won't listen to anyone. He's probably just got an authority problem with someone who looks like he should be on the front of a magazine naked with the American flag draped over his crotch."_

" _That's… fucking weird."_

 _Ana laughed. "I think I know what you've been thinking about, ya helo"_

 _Jack watched Gabriel walk in calmly and exit with a red-faced, sheepish boy with barely enough facial hair to call a goatee._

" _Good fucking luck, I guess."_

 _Gabriel clapped the scrawny thing on the shoulder and smiled. "If he gives me trouble, I'll put a bullet in his head. No big deal."_

 _Jack grunted and frowned. It didn't sound like a joke, but sometimes Gabe was like that - too dry to notice his actual intended humor._

 _But then again, maybe he wasn't joking._

 _The images drifted and swirled, forming the image of a small girl he'd seen trailing behind Jesse, her eyes bright and her head wearing his hat._

" _What do you think of that, Ana?"_

" _If Gabriel trusts him, then so will I."_

" _He_ _ **is**_ _a firecracker."_

" _And on the straight."_

 _Jack grunted in assent. "What's the girl think of him?"_

" _Angela or Fareeha?"_

" _Fareeha's practically like my own daughter at this point. Why would I call her that?"_

 _Ana smiled, the creases around her mouth growing a little deeper in the last few years. "Fair enough." She paused, thinking and watching her daughter trail the ex-con. "Angela doesn't want to trust him and tries to keep Fareeha away, but she really does want to believe he's good at heart."_

 _Jack shook his head. "She wants to believe that about everyone."_

 _Ana smiled. "I think that's what makes_ _ **her**_ _a good person."_

 _Jack couldn't help but smile as Gabriel walked into Jesse and Fareeha's path, picking up the small girl - even small for her age - and set her on his shoulder. He ruffled Jesse's hair and said something. They all laughed, and for a second, Jack wasn't worried about anything._

 _Until Angela Ziegler walked into the room and drew Gabriel's eye._

" _Jack!"_

 _He looked around his dreamvision, suddenly becoming aware of his dreaming, and the walls of the hangar began to fade, but they only shifted into something else - something hotter and more claustrophobic._

" _Jack, please!" A pause. "Please, hold on!" Increasingly frantic words came out in rushes like a river surging from a passing boat. "Please, Jack, I can fix this!"_

 _Dark, clouded his eyes, and heat and ash and dust clogged his lungs. His face burned almost as much as his lungs. He started moving, though his arms felt like throbbing dead weight._

 _The voice grew closer, repeating the same words._

Angela _, he thought._

 _Everything rushed back like the flames surrounding him. This was the Overwatch Headquarters. He'd confronted Reyes about his affiliation with Talon._

 _He'd found out by accident, uncovering a file buried in some other data. It was almost like it'd been put there just to draw his attention. They'd been yelling at each other when they'd heard the first crashing - the first boom and the first falling plaster._

 _They'd looked at one another and taken off toward the entrance._

 _It didn't_ _ **matter**_ _to Jack what Gabe had done. They both knew that sound, but they were on the sixth floor. It would injure them severely to jump the railing and land in the bottom floor's entry hall. They had to_ _ **run**_ _, but they both knew they would never make it._

 _Then, Gabriel had done something Jack never thought he would._

 _He picked Jack up, drew him close, whispered, and threw him further away from the exit._

" _If one of us has to make it out alive, it won't be a washed up commander. I've got bigger things, Jack."_

Jack Morrison woke with a start, Jesse shaking his shoulder fairly violently. Jack found himself sitting bolt upright.

"Jack."

"What?" It sounded a lot more angry than he meant it to.

"You were doing the thing again."

Jack sighed, "Sorry."

Jesse grunted and yawned. "Wanna talk about it?"

"You sound half asleep."

"Yeah, but I'm still here, ain't I?"

Jack felt himself smiling through the dense fog of waking from restless sleep. He lay back a little more. "What time is it?"

"A little after five."

Jack scooted up closer to Jesse, still laying on his back, and Jesse rolled onto his side, his head on Jack's scarred chest. "You know I spread a lie about the Overwatch Headquarters, right?"

Jesse snorted. "I figured as much. It didn't seem like Reyes to confront someone over a _promotion_. He had plenty of power on his own and was lined up for more."

Jack nodded but fell silent.

"You dream about HQ a lot, don't you?"

"Yeah…" Jack didn't feel the need to say anything else. He'd only been asleep a little while and managed to fit plenty of nightmares in anyway. He needed rest to start helping Angela and start talking to Ana. Hell, he needed to spend more time with everyone.

There was a dark cloud looming over them all.

It felt very much like it had before Lena's meeting with Amélie in Heerenveen except… except much worse.

He felt it off in the distance, more than anything, but he felt a sense of finality.

The bullet. The construction. All of it was revolving around Brazil, but Brazil was just a distraction from a larger structure. He'd known that for years, ever since Vishkar set up their deal.

But…

That finality was drawing nearer, no matter how much they tried to put it off.


	37. Flesh and Bone

Amélie leaned against a crumbling wall and looked up at the city, wondering if more like her milled about in this place so against those like her, but then again, why would there be a refugee camp if there was acceptance of her kind? She was grateful for those around her. They'd given her food and drink and a place to sleep. They'd taught her ways to survive in the harsh conditions she'd been put under. In the weeks she'd spent there, she'd found a bizarre kind of peace that she would never have considered being exposed to in any normal circumstance. But hers was no normal circumstance, she supposed.

She stole from markets when she had to, but she no longer ate out of garbage bins. Those who looked more fully human would often run around and make food runs, but they would often come back with bruises or with squished goods. This city was not kind to her kind.

And she'd caused some of the worst of it.

Memories continued to surface the longer she was Awake. Sometimes, it was too much, and she would allow herself to slip down into the still waters from whence she once rose. She would make sure that no one else was around and take a reprieve from this rigorous daily schedule of appearing normal to everyone around her. Well… as normal as she could seem given the fact that she was sitting around being chummy with those that she strove to murder not so long ago. She had a distinct feeling that they knew somehow, despite how Talon had done so much to erase her identity and her existence in the world. Somehow, though…

"Dweet dweet dweet!"

Amélie tried to stifle the small jump as she was yanked from her thoughts. "Ah, yes, hello."

There were a few whirring sounds and a tweet or three that made her turn around. "What did you need? I'm sorry, I feel as though I weren't completely myself."

"Deeeewoo," replied Bastion sweetly. As if to mirror their comfort, Ganymede chirruped and jumped a time or two.

Bastion went on a little rant about needing a few things for camp, and Amélie nodded. "I can do that, especially if the others are unwell."

Bastion pumped up and down on their little stilt legs and whirred happily. Amélie couldn't stop herself from smiling just a little, but that smile was quickly washed away with the knowledge that she would have to be around other people. Other _masses_ of people. People that wanted to hurt her _without_ knowing who she was - people who wanted to hurt her for all the wrong reasons.

"Twoot?"

"No, I'm fine. It is only the chill."

"Heewoop?"

"No, I will not take another coat. This one is fine. Thank you."

Bastion made a noncommittal noise before ambling off down the alleyway. Secretly, she wondered how a bastion unit would ever be in charge of a group of peaceful refugees, but then again, as the snow drifted a little harder than it had been moments before, Amélie wondered how _she_ could ever be a minor _part_ of a peaceful refugee group. She looked down at her shoes uncomfortably. She'd stolen them.

Crunchy snow melting and iced over clung to the blackened dirt and soot and debris of the sprawling city. Crusty ridges formed in jagged white lines like an ocean marking the beach with its tides. They'd salted the streets because of the heavy snowfall, and they'd made her wear it. _They'd_ tarnished her few, few things.

 _No. I can't afford to think like that anymore. No one is out to get me._

The more rational part of herself laughed at the thought. _No one except a giant organization with its fingers in too many pies with Reyes at the head._

She strove to free herself from her internal monologue and turned to Bastion. "When do you need the supplies?"

Then she remembered that they were no longer there.

She sighed to herself and looked back down at her shoes. She wiggled her cold toes and folded her arms over her chest, wondering how in the _hell_ she was supposed to retrieve twenty blankets and various other supplies at the Thames on her own.

* * *

Her fingers danced over the crumbling brick and splintered wood as she passed from old house to old house. Places closer to King's Row were more dilapidated and "rustic," as desperate real estate agents would say, but she knew the truth.

The most dense omnic population in the country was around King's Row, and the governments seemed to be aware of that as much as the general population as evidenced by the state of disrepair everything seemed to be in - from government buildings (mostly abandoned) to omnic run shops and bazaars. The snow seemed to exaggerate the drooping roofs and dark windows as she passed, crunching along the untrodden streets on her own.

Snow drove a lot of the usual inhabitants indoors for fear of rust in combination with the salted roads, which seemed to be the only "constructive" government assistance when it was clear that the saltings were to drive off the lonely group that lived there.

 _Angela Ziegler's work is designed to stave off the rust as well as retain a certain amount of feeling… How does she manage to do so much when she has so little even now…?_

Amélie mused as she crunched along, wondering how she'd changed so much over such a short time to think that Angela Ziegler was an admirable woman. In her own way, she supposed, she missed being in the bustling areas where the Overwatch crew would move around - smelling their different perfumes and shampoos, hearing cups clinking in the metal sink, watching everyone interact so warmly… But… It contrasted with her memories of being at the Overwatch Headquarters with Gérard.

An icepick drilled through the upper right quadrant of her head, and she stumbled, clutching her forehead. The icy air raked at her throat and obscured refreshing breaths with numbing chill. Her eyes watered, and she blinked rapidly, her cheeks feeling too hot very suddenly. Those headaches had been happening more and more.

Some tiny, frozen part of her screamed about her programming, but she couldn't quite decipher those feelings - those memories. There was something very important that she was forgetting, but she couldn't for the life of her remember _what_.

She took another few seconds to try to clear her head before she continued walk to her destination. Feeling it subside slowly, she took a breath and relaxed a fraction. She might have been hungry… It had been…

She blinked.

It had been only about six hours since she'd last eaten.

Amélie frowned to herself, thinking about how inconvenient most things were that were coming back to her - eating every few hours to avoid exhaustion, sleeping every day to avoid fatigue, having memories that would catch her off guard and throw her into a fog for an indeterminate amount of time. She was so… out of control of this body. It didn't feel like her own, but she couldn't do anything to own it except to keep moving forward.

Keep moving forward and not think about Lena.

She walked across the concrete bridge and found a rusty metal ladder leading down to the point that would have the shipment of blankets and clothes. Holding onto the rusted bridge railing, she launched herself over the side and landed on the crunchy snow a little less gracefully than she could have, her foot turning over from hitting an upturned concrete. She yelped and fell to her knees in the snow, catching herself from falling on her face by slamming her hands into the undisturbed snow. Pain laced around her hand in a spiderweb glove, and she pulled her throbbing hand from the uncomfortable snow. Her hand had been cut on one of the concrete chunks - not deeply enough to bleed, she thought, but blood flowed from her palm all the same and dripped onto the compacted snow where she'd fallen.

Her heart shuddered in her chest like a bird falling from its perch in a delicate cage.

" _Bandage it. Don't let it get infected through exposure,"_ Gérard's voice whispered to her, and she did as she was told, ripping one of her shirts and quickly, if not messily, tying the thing around her bleeding hand.

That same voice that had screamed when her head ached returned fervently - feverishly. Her mind felt fuzzy, but she clamped down on her hand, pushing her fingers against her simple wound. She couldn't afford to slip now when she was out and exposed. She needed to get her supplies and get back to camp.

But that voice still screamed in her head.

Incoherently.

Fearfully.

* * *

She managed to bustle about and head back to the base, crafting an impromptu sled to drag the load of supplies behind her, and she noticed that some lights were on in some of the previously dark houses. She'd almost missed the fact that it was nearly night outside, and the temperature had dropped all day, making it one of the coldest days on record. It had taken her the better part of three hours to acquire everything that she needed, and now, more than anything, she wished she could have a hot bath, a hot meal, and someone to hold her. Her hand hadn't stopped bleeding either, and she wondered if she'd miscalculated the severity of her scrape.

Wearily, she dropped off the supplies with someone who would distribute them evenly to the refugees and went to the medic with several others waiting patiently. Amélie felt a twinge of irritation. Widowmaker whispered to barge in and get assistance immediately.

And still more, another part of her noticed the refuse and debris piled in the corners like they all lived in some slum, which they did, and she noticed the smell of unclean bodies and diesel mingling with a faint chemical burning - so different from the strawberry shampoo that she liked and the light floral scent of Lena Oxton's perfume. Hadn't she gone to the doctor with Lena more than once?

Floodgates of memory opened again and doused Amélie with images and sensations of antiseptic smells and the warm, nervous, firm grip of Lena's hand on her own. Lena hated doctor's visits, but then, Amélie guessed she knew why, especially after the accident. Lena had sores from her chronal accelerator for a long time after carrying its burden and often needed to go get checked and treated for possible infections and inspection for flesh eating bacteria or something the rather. Amélie almost always went with her.

The pain in Lena's beautiful dark eyes… The fear…

" _Amélie, will you stay with me tonight?"_

" _Chérie,_ _why don't you just come sleep in my bed with me? It's big enough for both of us."_

" _I… Okay."_

She missed those innocent times, even though she clearly saw the desire and want in Lena's expressive eyes.

A quiet voice jolted her from her thoughts a little too violently to be a simple startle, and Amélie realized she'd fallen asleep waiting to be seen. A waif of a thing stood there with their hand on her arm, and she struggled to stand. She was just so _tired._

And cold.

She was so cold.

Her heart thudded loudly in her ears as she followed the heavily modded individual back behind the grungy curtain that separated the back room from the front waiting room, and Amélie was pleasantly surprised to find that the back room - the examination room - was much more clean and clear of refuse. That antiseptic smell scented the air, and Amélie couldn't help but smile to herself.

 _Do all hospitals use the same cleaner?_

A horrible flash of memory overwhelmed her.

Blinding fluorescent light and leather straps chafing her naked skin. Something was shoved in her mouth and nodes dotted her chest like lecherous moles.

"What troubles you today?"

Amélie blinked blearily and looked around, breathing heavily. _Just a memory..._

She spoke slowly as to not reveal the panic in her heart. "I seem to have cut my hand, and it isn't clotting properly."

"Are you anemic?"

Amélie shuddered as Widowmaker steered her lips to quirk up, thinking about Lena in the rain and the mud and the cold - thinking about Lena bleeding too much from a non-fatal wound.

"Possibly," Widowmaker's voice replied.

"We need to check your wound, but would you mind going down your list of modifications? It helps us figure out the problem easier." The nurse's voice had the familiar lilt of the area, and in a way, it calmed Amélie's ever-fraying nerves. "Would you please sit on the bench?"

Amélie shifted uncomfortably, but some unseen force guided her to the metal table so much like the ones Talon had used against her. She felt herself shutting down and giving way to that horrible _thing_ that lurked under her consciousness as the nurse went for a clipboard. She fought to keep it submerged, but she was so _tired_ …

"Your list of modifications?"

Amélie hesitated, wondering if the answer was buried deeply underneath the tombstone that rattled malevolently and threatened to release Widowmaker. She couldn't risk letting that thing out around others. She didn't know what it could do.

 _You know of what you are capable, fool. You know who you are_ , Widowmaker whispered from beneath her restraints.

Amélie forced herself to speak. "I- I do not know."

The nurse blinked, their electric blue eyes seeming to glow along with the bands around their upper arms and neck. "You do not know?"

Amélie's voice came out quietly, and her stomach rumbled with hunger, fear, and distress. "No, I don't."

"Would you undress? I might be able to identify some of the modifications through inspection."

Unsettled by the overly clinical speech, Amélie conceded warily and began to remove her clothing, save for the ineffective bandage around her hand. The air was much colder without the four layers of clothes she had, but her body did not shiver and her bones did not hurt with the creeping chill.

The tombstone began to slide off the cavernous grave in her mind even further.

The nurse checked her over quickly and, thankfully, with no comment on the giant tattoo across her back and on her forearm. Those symbols though could be used to destroy the small peace she'd been granted in this place and end the progress she'd made thus far.

 _Progress…_ She mused as she drew on her shirt, pulling it over her body a bit clumsily with the wrapped hand. Her pants came on much easier, and she was suddenly glad that she'd disposed of her suit someplace far away from the base. _If_ Talon had tracking devices in her suit, they would be watching her to try to pin down a routine to sweep her away quietly, and even if Talon hadn't tracked her suit, some of the refugees in the camp had been there during the Mondatta shooting and would surely recognize her if they'd caught a glimpse. It was too dangerous to keep such an odd piece of Talon memorabilia, not to mention strange and restricting. By holding onto that suit for as long as she had, she'd waited to disown Widowmaker as a part of herself and therefore given Widowmaker a hold on some part of her mind - something even more dangerous than Overwatch or Talon or any large organization.

"I cannot find any external modifications, and I have concluded that your modifications are internal, possibly over your whole body and across internal organs but more likely centered in your brain. Do you know what caused this? The procedure? Anything?" The nurse's voice didn't sound too cool and cavalier then. They sounded… concerned.

"No," Widowmaker lied calmly. She needed to get out of that place. "The hand is my primary concern."

The nurse's thin face twisted in a frown like an animated, gnarled twig in the wind. They were a willowy individual, someone easily dispatched in case of emergency. Her knowledge of basic modifications and enhancements told her that the nurse's mods were primarily for the book-learned - easier access to memory, easier retention, eyes that never tired...

"Of course," the nurse replied quietly.

Amélie stifled her panic at the increasingly analytical thoughts that began to seep into her own. She wouldn't have ever thought something like that. She didn't even _know_ anything about modifications except that they'd been all but banned from certain performance areas at her former troupe, which seemed a little exclusionary now that she looked around at the sheer mass of people who were at least partially like her.

She watched with growing fear and agitation as the nurse quickly inspected, disinfected, and stitched the hand without anaesthetic and with a small apology. She barely felt the needle prick her skin.

 _They aren't like you. They still have their humanity_ , Widowmaker whispered.

Amélie listened.

And the tombstone slid off of Widowmaker's confining grave.

* * *

"You're fuckin' with me, yeah? You want _me_ to crawl in _that_ hole."

Junkrat nodded fervently. "Yes, yes! I need to get rid of this as soon as I can."

Lena rolled her eyes and eyed the culvert pipe he gesticulated at so proudly. For all she knew, there were scorpions and spiders and an extra pocket-dimension in that dark and spooky thing. She wasn't fond of the idea of putting a _bomb_ in a pipe even if the area was mostly deserted.

"They done us dirty, I tell you! Done us right dirty, right, Roadie?"

Roadhog only grunted in what seemed to be agreement.

"We gotta blow this bit. We just gotta!"

Lena frowned. "Okay, but why? It's a road. It won't do a lot of good just making a little piece of road explode."

Junkrat shook his head, wafting the stench of singed hair in Lena's direction, making her wrinkle her nose distastefully. "You don't understand! This is absolutely _devious_. This is absolutely _horrible_ for them! It makes their commute to the city _twenty minutes longer_!"

Lena frowned some more. These guys had done nothing but minor crime after minor crime. Most of the time, the things they did didn't even make sense. Like… blowing up a tiny section of road. Sometimes, she wondered if they were just doing it to make things go boom.

She looked at the silent Mako for a long moment, but he said nothing… as usual. As a matter of fact, he'd been almost silent since her first day with them. Over the next week and a half spent wandering small towns and resting up in the occasional city, Lena had grown tolerantly fond of the strange pair. In a way, they reminded her of home and of everyone _at_ home. Mako's silence and disapproving glares, which were hard enough to distinguish from his lack of speech and obscured face, reminded her of Angela, Fareeha, Jack, Mei, and Genji. Jameson - the name Junkrat she found more appropriate more often than not - reminded her of Hana, Jesse, and Zarya if they all had a strange baby and let it be raised by wolves and radiation.

"What if I don't wanna do it?"

Junkrat stamped his foot and his peg indignantly - childishly, even. "Well, _I'll_ never make it back out with m' leg like it is, not to mention m' arm."

"What if I put my boot up your-"

" **crawl**."

Both of them looked to Mako, eyebrows raised. He grunted and sat where he stood and had been standing for the better part of ten minutes while they discussed the finer parts of hole crawling. The sun had risen high in the sky and Lena's pancakes were long gone. She assumed that Mako's steak and eggs, which he'd scarfed down with no one looking, were also well on their way to being in his intestines. Junkrat seemed to run on motor oil and sugar.

With a groan, Lena got on her hands and knees and squirmed far enough in the hole to reach an arm out for the explosive. Her chronal accelerator gave off enough light for her to see by, and she was grateful for it lest she have put her hand directly on a glass bottle and shattered it, cutting open her hand and probably killing her with some weird Australian disease. Fucking hell… Everything out in this hell-land seemed to want to kill her, including the two jackasses she was currently running with.

The hard packed dirt under her hands and knees scraped uncomfortably, but she was beginning - after several weeks in this strange, dry land - to believe that discomfort was merely a way of life here. She hated being uncomfortable. She stuck the bomb's adhesive strip to the inner part of the culvert pipe and backpedaled her way out, knocking the back of her head on one of the culvert pipe's bumps from its twisting steel. She didn't really know why this area would have these, unless rainfall was a constant problem, which - seeing as how she was stuck in the middle of Fuck-all, Australia - she doubted.

Lena squirmed out with minimal scratches on her hands - her knees protected by Hana's thoughtful suit, which was modeled after her own that Winston had designed. She wondered if she could get this in black and white stripes… She'd have to ask Hana when she got back home.

 _Home_.

"Did you do it?" Lena managed to decipher the heavy accent clouded with excitement with a little more effort than usual.

"Yeah, yeah, but I don't really understand why violence and bombs are the only things you lads can do. Have you tried… I don't know… Talking out your problems?"

Roadhog chuckled his unsettling laugh. " **violence is usually the answer.** "

Lena smiled to herself, remembering how Angela had a habit of asking, _Must violence always be the solution?_ She knew that the two of them would get along just _**great**_ **.**

How could she bring two strange men home anyway? How could she get them all across oceans and continents without drawing attention to herself and the other two? They weren't exactly the most inconspicuous people. She guessed that she could scrape off the grime and hose down Junkrat and give him a suit, but Roadhog was a different matter. He was massive. You couldn't just ignore a guy that big. He had a tendency to hook people in.

She pushed aside the thought, climbing back in their very large vehicle and nestling herself in the corner by the door as usual. Junkrat sailed over her head, as usual, and bounced on the bench, complaining about breaking his butt like he usually did. Roadhog climbed in with a grunt and jammed the key into the ignition, and Lena gritted her teeth, ready for the stereo to blast another song over and over until she wanted to die.

But… it could have been worse, she thought with a small smile.

She pulled her jacket around her to keep off some of the buffeting sand and pulled down her goggles. The radio flared up and an incredibly loud boom went off behind them as they rode away.

* * *

They rode and rode past small, sprawling towns that spread from the two major cities on the southern coast - Melbourne and Adelaide (Sydney was alright for the most part, but they didn't go that way or really consider that the _southern_ coast), catching up on sleep, fuel, and food along the way. The trio would take turns driving after they'd taught Lena how to manage the clutch on this strange car, which she'd only heard about in museums during her time in Overwatch when she visited the Smithsonian series of museums.

It had taken her a long time before she could talk and operate this vehicle, whose wheels touched the ground… and had wheels… She, in her limited driving experience, had only driven new models of cars that didn't have wheels and used concentrated positive pressure to keep themselves up in the air. This car had given her nausea and they'd had to stop frequently in the first while of driving to let her gag and vomit from all the bumping and jerking around. It still lingered after almost two weeks of riding, but it was considerably better, and as long as she had some antacids, she would be fine.

She'd been eating the chewable antacids like candy.

"So what's out there? Between us and Alice Springs?"

Roadhog was silent but in a different way than normal. He seemed… uncomfortable.

"Dirt. Desert. Some houses and dirt farms for people who are strong enough," replied Junkrat cheerfully. "Bands of criminals. Probably cannibals… And twenty foot long scorpions. They made a documentary about us, you know! They called it _Fury Road_ , and it was _great_."

Lena frowned, pretty sure that Jack had watched that movie with her and Hana at one point, and she was fairly certain that it was not, in fact, a documentary.

"You're shitting me about the scorpions."

Roadhog shook his head and pulled his hands away from the wheel to steer with his knee. He put his hands about three feet apart. " **stinger**."

Lena swallowed hard as he put his hands calmly back onto the wheel.

Junkrat squirmed excitedly. "Oh, Roadie, we gotta hit it. We _gotta_."

Roadhog grunted.

"Hit what?" Lena asked, unsure if she really wanted to know.

Junkrat's eyes glittered with cheer, amusement, and general impishness. "The motherload."

Lena sighed, expecting more but not getting much else without prodding.

"It's only the biggest thing we've ever hit. Everything so far has been baby times, but _this_ …" He laughed his strange, endearing little laugh. "This is the biggest, and it's only ten miles out of the way."

Lena shrugged. "Alright, let's do it."

She then realized she was getting more okay with the idea of a life of crime.


	38. Life Itself

"Oh, Roadie, you better get ready to extend your contract another forty years."

Lena raised her eyebrows and grimaced at the grit she could already feel on her face. She'd _just_ washed off at a rest stop, but there was no evading the dry, dusty air that would sandblast her and settle into every pore in a matter of minutes, especially hurtling down the road at 160 kilometers per hour.

Lena squinted against the afternoon sun, even with her tinted goggles, and saw a dot rapidly approaching in the distance. She wondered what it could be, feeling butterflies of excitement flaring up and fluttering about. Her first real _heist_. She was completely unknown here with her disguise, which sometimes grew tiresome, but the freedom it allowed gave her some pause in her irritation. She could be whoever she wanted here - not a prodigious pilot, not a failed member of a scrutinized organization, not a weak link in a strong team. She could just be… reckless without worrying about the fallout. She could make decisions that she never could have even though she _wanted_ to be good and helpful to everyone around her. She could go on a heist to get the feel for what her opponents did so she could have a better understanding of how they worked… and she never could have done it in any other setting.

Reckless.

She smiled to herself.

She was absolutely reckless.

Her smile faded as she saw the indistinguishable dot turn into a small blue and white striped building with a small awning over a screen door. The paint was faded and chipped, but there was a homey-ness to it. She squinted a little more and her heart sank as she saw the sign.

This was no _bank_. This was no real _heist_.

This was a fucking _ice cream parlor._

Lena sat back in the car dismayed. She would never experience _real_ crime unless she was the one beating up the criminals. Some small part of her wondered why she wanted to commit heinous crimes, but she knew deep down that she would only be able to be okay with soft crime or else she'd feel the need to stop whatever was being planned. She thought she could sit back on this one, though. She had a big enough heist of her own coming up - raiding a secluded Talon base would be hard enough on her own, but with two hulking men - well, one of them was hulking and the other just… loud - she figured that it was going to be even more difficult to infiltrate without being apprehended or worse. She did, however, have a plan for how to persuade her newfound companions. She thought she could run it over one last time with Athena while the boys went in and grabbed… whatever.

They skidded to a halt only a few feet from the door, and they bailed out. Lena tucked herself down into the car, not wanting to be seen, and pulled out her phone to see eight messages and three missed calls from Hana.

"Oi, Athena, what's this?"

Athena blinked to life behind the message notifications. "Well, it _looks_ like Hana has been trying to contact you."

Lena rolled her eyes, but there was no malice in the action any more than had been in Athena's words. Their relationship hadn't mended back where it once was by any means, but their banter had returned slowly. For Lena, the late nights alone and the strange environment weighed so heavily on her, and deep, undisturbed longing made its play on her heart and mind and soul. Mending her relationship with Athena was the only thing that kept her from breaking from that hidden loneliness.

She swiped open her screen and poked around at her messages to find all the messages were from Hana.

 **[2/12 3:23 lena dude i gotta talk to you]**

 **[MISSED CALL]**

 **[2/12 3:27 LENA PLS]**

 **[2/12 3:27 lena its SATYA]**

 **[2/12 3:28 i think im dating two people now?]**

 **[MISSED CALL]**

 **[2/12 3:30** **ㅠㅡㅠ** **lena…..]**

 **[2/12 3:31 as my sincerest bro i need some ASSISTANCE also angela wants us to go to brazil and then i have to see my boyfriend AND my fuckningn GORLFROND pick up pls…]**

 **[MISSED CALL]**

 **[2/12 3:35 ok so that was a minor freak out but all the same i think i need an expert]**

 **[2/12 3:40 im so fuuuucking tired im sleepin so gimme a ring when you get a mo dude i dont know what to do w this shit]**

Lena frowned, trying to put everything together. That was… a lot to take in.

Her stomach rolled, thinking about how her family back where she called home seemed to be doing better than fine without her. Hana had apparently fixed everything with Lúcio. Angela was stable enough to start working on taking Reyes down. The whole team was more cohesive than ever, from this side of things, and they were… without her.

She'd talked to Hana every few days, even just for a minute or two here and there just to make sure she didn't feel abandoned, but she didn't know how well that was going. Lena didn't know how everything had been going from this far away, but she could gather enough from the tiny things Hana slipped.

"Athena, what do you think about all this?" She was desperately trying to distract herself.

Athena was silent for a prolonged moment, and comedic crashing and bumping came loudly from the ice cream parlor's screen door. Lena could hear Junkrat yelling and, no doubt, flailing and saying corny shit.

"I think that Hana is currently asleep, but that she may need a shoulder on which to rest once she wakes. She's not entering a deep sleep."

Lena frowned curiously for a minute, furrowing her eyebrows in thought. Athena was giving her more and more information lately on the new headquarters, and Lena wondered if Athena was even _aware_ she'd been doing it. Again, their truce and mending was a quiet, curious thing that teetered on devastation constantly. Athena seemed willing to make amends, but understandable fear held her back. Lena could only imagine the what if's that plagued Athena's mind.

 _What if Lena is only trying to get me to back down so she can use me more? What if I'm just what Lena said I am? What if I'm only as useful as my programming?_

Lena shook her head. "Sorry, got a tad bit lost in thought there."

Athena was quiet, and the two lapsed into uncomfortable silence again, but Athena didn't blink off.

"Lena, why did you say what you said?"

"Don't I wish I knew." It was the truth, mostly. Looking back, Lena wasn't sure why she'd said those horrible things to Athena - why she'd pushed Athena when she could have just _talked_ to her… talked to her whole family rather than vanishing in the night without a number or a way to contact. She'd manipulated Athena into submission and dashed Athena's belief in herself.

Athena didn't have to say those things for Lena to know. After all, for the first few years upon joining Overwatch, her only friends were a massive genetically engineered gorilla and an out of place artificial intelligence with a unique personality. She regretted falling away from the two of them, and she would _definitely_ have to fix some of that when she got home.

She had so much to fix when she got home.

"Athena, I was so scared of leaving."

"Then why did you leave?" The question was not accusatory but did have an edge.

Lena sighed, wondering when the strange duo would come out of the ice cream shop. "I left because there's someone out there who can help us fight Talon, and no one was going to get her if I didn't go ahead and go."

"Is this because of your feelings for Amélie?" Again, the question was not hostile, but this one had less steel embedded in the words.

"Yes and no," Lena confessed. She'd had plenty of time to think about her actions and what specifically drove them. A giant stony knot rolled in her stomach, and anxious gunk clogged her throat. She cleared her throat quietly and opened her mouth to speak again, but Athena butted in.

"I believe that your intentions are not malicious even if your actions were."

Lena couldn't really respond to that without sounding like a dick, so she didn't. The stone in her stomach seemed to grow, raising tides of nausea in the tumultuous seas of her gut. She didn't do so good with confrontation.

Athena's voice was softer this time. "I am trying to find it in me to fully forgive you, but I'm afraid, too, Lena." She paused. "I'm afraid that you're going to turn on me again. You were my closest friend besides Winston."

Lena blew out a breath. "I've not been a very good friend to anyone lately, mate. Been a real tosser."

Athena… laughed? Lena couldn't help but smile a little, the AI's quiet giggle making her feel a lot less pressured. Smugly, she replied, "I can't disagree."

Lena smiled a little wider. After a small pause, she asked, "Hey, I need some advice and a favor."

"Yes?"

"Do you think offering those two gits a spot at breaking and entering and thievery of explosives would entice them to help me break into the spot in Alice Springs?"

Athena remained silent for a time, as if thinking, and responded curtly. "Yes."

"Anythin' else?"

Athena was quiet again. "Lena Oxton, you are the most reckless member of Overwatch I've ever seen or heard of."

Lena smiled. "That's just my brand, love."

Athena did not laugh. "Your favor?"

Lena looked down, blushing a little. "Yeah, about that…" Lena chewed on her bottom lip. "Could you let me know when Fareeha and Hana wake up?"

"Fareeha?" There was no subtle shock in Athena's voice. In fact, there was enough for Lena to almost tangibly feel the words vibrating with confusion and excitement.

"Yeah. I want an accurate status report. And… I want to know how Angela _really_ is."

Athena was quiet for a time. "Oh! Ah, I am… I'm nodding."

Lena barked a laugh, and the stone that had been growing like some otherworldly thing in her stomach shrank to oblivion. "Bloody hell, Athena, you've been talking to Zenyatta way too much."

And then, as she'd grown accustomed to in these few short weeks, the two soft boys burst through the door, carrying large containers that looked more like kegs, which were, undoubtedly, filled with lucious ice cream. Athena blinked off quietly, and Lena frowned. She didn't like how Athena felt the need to leave every time there was someone else around, but Lena knew why. Australia was not exactly a kind place for those like her.

Lena remembered back to King's Row all those years ago when she'd failed so miserably at saving Mondatta Tekhartha and back to the crowds of people all but foaming at the mouth and filled with hatred. How had she come up to love her omnic and artificial intelligence brothers and sisters like she did?

 _You never spent a lot of time back home. You travelled._

Lena sighed as the music cranked up with Roadhog's twist of the key, and they sped off down the road. She stared at the large man and past Junkrat, who held out a spoon and a smaller tub of ice cream. Distracted by her own thoughts, she took the tub with a mumble of thanks and wondered who the man under the mask even _was_. She'd never really considered it before now, but now that the thought struck her, she couldn't stop wondering.

Maybe she didn't want to know.

* * *

Lena had heard about the radiation that devastated Australia when she was a young girl. She even remembered where she was and what she was doing.

 _A small man laughed jovially on the television propped in the corner of a café where the Oxtons stopped for some sustenance between their comings and goings. Lena's father was too loud in this quiet place, but that didn't bother her - not at that age. She picked at her waffles, wanting to go to the train station where her parents promised to buy her a new coat. She didn't_ _ **need**_ _a new coat, but she'd seen one that she really liked in a shop just in passing. Walking around and touring facilities with her parents wasn't exactly fun work, but she was doing her best to be quiet and understanding. She needed to look good for her family, anyway._

 _Her eyes kept drifting to the television in the corner of the room where the jovial Man in the Yellow Sweater was calling out the weather for the local area and surrounding areas, but something changed. The chatter of the television stopped entirely, and the Man in the Yellow Sweater cut to a Woman in a Blue Dress, who sat in stunned silence, her eyes going over a paper over and over._

 _The café fell silent like a river turning into a stream then a trickle, and all eyes moved to the screen and the silent Woman in a Blue Dress._

 _Lena felt uneasy and pulled at her mother's arm. "Mum, what's going on?"_

" _Hush, Lena."_

 _Lena, too, fell silent._

 _The Woman in a Blue Dress began speaking. "We…" She paused, taking a breath. "We interrupt our weather forecast to bring some… unexpected and… terrible news. The entire… The…" The woman swallowed visibly and closed her eyes, breathing slowly. "I'm sorry. This is strange, unprecedented, and confusing. The entire continent of Australia has been…" She looked down at the words again, her eyes squinted at the paper again. "Australia has undergone several explosions across the continent. The death toll is unknown but is estimated in the millions. Our…" She grew quiet and stopped looking at the camera. "Our sources say that the dust cloud obscures our satellites, and there is no visual of the surface. We are currently receiving no updates from any Australian government, and all flights are currently grounded. All mass transportation is shut down until further notice. We have satellite footage of the continent. This content may be bewildering and… unsuited for some viewers."_

 _Strange footage rolled of a cloud over an ocean, but there was nothing discernable about it other than that._

" _We will keep you updated as more information comes our way. We look to the Prime Minister to make a statement later today."_

"Hey, Junkrat, how old are you?" The question came out causally despite her curiosity.

The strange, toasted marshmellow of a man turned with a raised eyebrow. "'M about twenty-five, wouldn't y'say, Roadie?"

Roadhog grunted in agreement.

Lena nodded slowly, a little shocked that he was a year _younger_ than she was, but then again, a hard life must have aged him. Or maybe it was just the soot and ash. "What about you, Roadhog?"

He didn't say anything nor did he grunt in any kind of acknowledgment.

She kept talking for the sake of not being overly suspicious. "I mean, with the mask, it's kinda hard to tell, but I figure you're probably between forty and fifty."

" **forty-eight** ," he replied, even quietly for him. There was less rumble in his words than usual.

"Did you see what happened here?" She gestured toward the vast expanse that was the ever extending Outback.

He did not reply in any way. Junkrat became agitated and fidgety, bouncing his leg and pulling on his vest's straps, obviously picking up on some wavelength Lena hadn't managed to find from Roadhog.

She stopped asking questions and lapsed into silence.

She'd have to ask Athena when she got a quiet moment alone.

* * *

That time came later that night when the trio - the quartet, if you counted the slumbering Athena - arrived at a place where they could stop and sleep for the night. It was someone's house, but they were kind enough to let three strangers inside and out of the open.

The couple's home was grungy and ramshackle, built out of sheets of metal and salvaged wood. Lena was almost certain that one wall was made entirely of bus parts. Part of her pitied the people that lived like this, but another part of her admired them. They'd built lives out in the desert with little more than a hope and a prayer. Their backyard garden was patrolled by a very large, very scary looking dog of some unspecified breed.

Once the other two had gone to their room, Lena sat with the house owners for another few minutes before wanting to go out.

"What brings you three out here in the wasteland?" asked the young man.

"Takin' a trip, but we seem to be a few miles off course."

In all truth, the deviation from the route they'd chosen to take to go to Alice Springs was beginning to worry her. After all, she was running around with two strangers.

"A few miles?" The woman asked.

Lena nodded and began explaining their course.

The man frowned. "Well, that takes you straight to Alice Springs. Where you're heading is Junkertown."

Lena raised an eyebrow. "Junkertown?"

The hosts looked at each other with concern. "That's a rough place, and you don't exactly seem like the type to run around with these two. Are you okay?"

Lena explained her situation, in short and omitting some details, and the two seemed to understand but then excused herself to make some phone calls, feeling more than a little prickly and uncomfortable.

Once outside, she sat on the back stoop and overlooked the garden. The vicious looking dog gave a growl or two and then padded over with a doggy grin and a slobber string. Lena couldn't help but smile as she offered her hand for a sniff. The dog, in typical dog fashion, gave her a massive doggy kiss and curled up by Lena's feet. She looked up at the sky and listened to strange shrieks out in the dark, suddenly thankful she was close by to the house and by a rather large animal.

She took her time away from loud radio, away from chatter, away from keeping up a facade. The dog next to her pricked up its ears occasionally when the shrieks in the desert would start up. Lena figured it a mating call for some hellbeast for HellLand. She missed being home. She missed hot tea with Angela and laughing with Hana. She missed movies with Jack and philosophical conversation with Zenyatta. She missed Zarya's laughter and Mei's babbling about ecology and climate. Lena missed Winston, who had once been her best friend that she barely knew now. She missed Fareeha's smiles and warm words.

She missed her family.

She missed Amélie.

Her family…

Lena pulled her phone out of her pocket. "Athena?"

Athena started to blink on even before Lena called her up. "Yes, Lena?"

"Is Fareeha awake?"

Athena was quiet for a moment before sheepishly replying, "I'm sorry I forgot to tell you, but I've been… busy over on the other end. They are currently asking a lot, even for my servers."

Lena smiled. "It's okay, A. She still up?"

"Yes, she is. It is currently ten o'clock. Hana is currently sleeping. She went to sleep approximately an hour ago after her few waking hours."

Lena paused. "How's she been sleeping?"

Athena hesitated.

Lena waved a hand. "You don't have to tell me, if you think that's betraying her confidence."

Athena laughed quietly. "No, it is just… hard to quantify her sleep or identify its patterns."

Lena frowned. "Has she gotten off schedule?"

Athena didn't reply.

"She's not been sleeping again, has she?"

"No. Even when she does, she never enters a REM cycle."

Lena sighed and looked down at the sleeping dog at her feet and idly wondered if Hana could use an animal companion to keep her stress levels down. Hell, maybe Lena needed one for herself.

"Can you call Fareeha, if she's not too busy?"

"Calling Fareeha Amari."


	39. Rollercoaster

Fareeha looked down at the sleeping woman in her arms, incredibly thankful that her new arms couldn't fall asleep like her old ones, and she smiled to herself. It wasn't often that she was grateful for the explosion that took the bottom half of her limbs, but she supposed that this wasn't the worst outcome. Without that terrible time in her life, she would never have run back into Angela, who snored quietly beside her in peaceful rest.

Their skin touched warmly, and Fareeha couldn't be bothered to get up even though they'd been lying there well into the morning. Angela had stirred long enough to give Fareeha a kiss a few times and mumble something in German, but it wasn't much coherent. Sun streamed through the small window in their little room and fell upon Angela's hair, illuminating the fine filiments into a golden halo. Her soft skin seemed porcelain in the morning's gentle light, and Fareeha's heart beat hard. They'd stayed up late the night before doing…

Fareeha smiled to herself, but then her thoughts turned to their pillow talk, erasing the fullness of her smile and fading it into something faint - barely recognizable.

She wanted to give Angela a ring sooner than later, and they'd talked about it at length - not _just_ while they were both breathless, sweaty, and basking in the afterglow. Angela _said_ that she didn't want to marry Fareeha while there was still so much uncertainty prevailing in their lives. Fareeha knew the truth of the matter, even though it stung, but she would never tell Angela how much it actually hurt to know the truth. She knew that the real reason Angela kept putting her off really came down to the simple fact that Gabriel Reyes was still out and on the loose. Fareeha knew that she and Angela couldn't truly be at peace until Angela put that ghost to rest.

She knew, and even though it hurt some, she couldn't fault Angela. She _did_ love Angela Ziegler, and in the soft light of the morning with quiet foot-thumps on the floor below, Fareeha could almost imagine that they were there with their family and no threat loomed overhead, ready to destroy them all.

She longed for the day she could call Angela her wife.

Angela shifted in her sleep and closed her slightly parted lips and shut off her quiet snore. She'd wiggled herself out of the direct sunlight to Fareeha's slight dismay, and her eyebrows wrinkled. Her face seemed less contented, and her body tensed. She'd moved enough onto Fareeha's chest for Fareeha to wrap her arm around Angela and rub her warm, smooth shoulder with a gentle hand. Angela's body relaxed little by little.

"My love," Angela's sleepy voice whispered.

Fareeha jumped but tried to keep her voice quiet. "I didn't know you were awake."

She felt Angela smile against her exposed skin. "I wasn't until you started trying to seduce me." She snuggled up closer to Fareeha. "Your heart's going a mile a minute. I didn't mean to startle you, dear."

Fareeha shrugged as best she could laying down and with someone half on her. "I just didn't realize is all."

She felt Angela's strong, lithe legs pull tight and strain against her own in a stretch as Angela grunted quietly against Fareeha's neck. Fareeha felt her heart start beating hard for a different reason as Angela squirmed around in her usual waking up routine, which Fareeha could predict down to the second. Angela rolled over on top of Fareeha as she finished her rolling around and stretching, her skin feeling so warm in the slight chill that had settled in the wake of the central heat that had since cycled off. Her pointy chin dug into Fareeha's chest.

"What do you feel like doing today?" Her quiet voice had something in it that made chills break out on Fareeha's skin and she opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

Angela laughed. "What would you do if everyone knew you weren't a big bad and knew that you were just shy instead?"

Fareeha closed her mouth and felt her cheeks turning red.

"I've always been shy," she shot back a little too quickly and indignantly, but it was true.

She remembered watching Angela from afar when she was young, thinking she was too young to be friends with someone so cool, and Angela often treated her kindly despite the sudden, frustrated outbursts Fareeha had. She'd felt out of place frequently and sometimes reacted inappropriately considering that she was Ana Amari's child. Maybe that's why she did it.

"What time is it?" Angela asked without much urgency in her tone. Fareeha was always glad when Angela didn't sound panicked, which happened more often than not lately.

Her sleep had gotten worse. She'd barely been eating. Her body was beginning to show the stress as much as her voice.

Fareeha shifted reluctantly and pulled her phone off the nightstand with a tiny yank to pull it off the charger. Cool blue numbers lit up the transparent screen in her hand. With even more reluctance, she read off the time. "Almost ten."

Angela began to stir a little more insistently, and Fareeha's heart sunk. She wanted to take Angela on a date, but with the late rising, she knew as well as anyone that Angela would be tied to her work all day and most of the night. She'd taken off the night before and surely wouldn't take another, so Fareeha's only hope most times was for Angela to wake early and finish early. The anniversary of their dating was coming up in the next few days, and Fareeha wanted to do _something_ special for it.

"You know you don't always have to get up and run, right?"

Angela, who'd propped herself up and arched her lovely back in a stretch, turned to look at Fareeha. Her softly smiling lips were beautiful to Fareeha, and she very much wanted to kiss them then, but she refrained. "I think that I might take the day off, if that's alright with you."

Fareeha sputtered, feeling undignified and betrayed. Angela _never_ took breaks unless she was being _constructive_ during those times. She'd been like that since they were both kids.

"Yeah, um, I know I should have asked ahead of time, but since we're breaking… so many rules of the universe here… do you want to take… a few days off and just… run away with me for a bit? Just the two of us. Before all hell breaks loose, anyway."

Angela paused, her mouth open with words unspoken, but she stopped and smiled, her eyes kind and gracious. "I think something can be arranged. I'll have to go talk to the crew."

Fareeha waved her hand. "I talked to Jack, mama, Rein, and Winston. I should probably check with the kid, but-"

The phone in Fareeha's hand began buzzing in soft, short pulses, and both women looked down. Fareeha felt her heart jump into her throat. "Lena?"

She pulled up the sheet around her body and answered the phone, Angela hastily and blushily diving under the covers. Again, Fareeha asked, "Lena?"

A woman with colored hair and exaggerated roots looked at the camera with what Fareeha could only consider pleasant surprise. She was backlit, but the light from her accelerator gave enough to see her by.

"Hey, love, what's bangin'?"

Fareeha's mind went to white static for a time before she figured out how to words again. Angela peeked over the cover beside Fareeha.

"I mean, besides you. Did I call at a bad time? Athena said it was late morning so…" Lena trailed off and looked away from the phone, her brows knitting her and her lips thinning into a tight line. She turned back with a plastic smile.

Something was wrong.

Fareeha finally loosened her tongue from the bottom of her mouth. "No!" She swallowed, her face invariably showing the embarrassment welling and bursting within her like a poisonous bubble. She didn't want Lena to go. She wanted Lena to come _home_. She lowered her voice from its unintended shout and resumed. "No, we're, ah, we're not doing anything. We were about to get up and start moving, but a call is more than reason enough to stay in bed."

Lena wrinkled her nose in a genuine laugh. It was a good sound coming from the young woman and one not often heard in recent months. The uneasiness that had climbed into Fareeha's gut shriveled up its tendrils. _Australia must be doing something good for her if she can laugh like that again._

But the feeling only returned, stretching out like a noxious weed in the sun, when Lena looked up again, huddling down more in the darkness of what Fareeha guessed was outside.

"Yeah, uh, is… is Angela there?"

Angela poked up out from under the sheet, where she'd started running her fingers over Fareeha stomach in an effort to distract her from conversation. Fareeha could shove down her feelings pretty good when it became necessary, but Angela always tested the boundaries of her resolve when phone calls were involved.

"Hello, Lena." Fareeha couldn't help but shoot a glance at Angela. Her words were unusually somber for such a cheerful tone. Angela seemed positively _buzzing_ with energy and exuberance at the mere prospect of the phone call. Betraying the air that Angela exuded, her smile was as heavy and sad as her eyes.

"Oh, uh, um…" Lena smiled, but uncertainty colored her expression. It was slight, but Fareeha knew it on anyone's face. She'd seen it on the faces of her comrades in raids and fights. She was smiling, but something wasn't right. Her eyes were too wary. Her teeth clenched too hard. Her jaw was too tight. Her eyebrow twitched slightly, even visible in the dark. "Hey, Ang. Guess I have some explaining to do, huh?"

Fareeha anticipated Angela to tense and to respond too quickly, but she surprised Fareeha. Angela laughed. She _laughed_.

"You do, but now isn't the time, child. How are you? Where are you? Are you safe?" Angela sat up, pulling the cover up with her, leaving Fareeha almost visibly exposed, and Fareeha pulled to keep herself covered with the flimsy cotton sheet as she too sat up.

Lena's laugh felt less forced than Fareeha would have expected, and a seedling of doubt lodged itself in her mind if she _really_ knew the people around her like she was supposed to. She pushed that thought aside though. She knew that she'd just have to roll with the punches.

"Yeah, 'm doin' okay, I guess. Got a banger of a headache since I've been ridin' around all day. Headin' to Alice Springs, if you hadn't heard. Think I'm en route to a place called Junkertown?"

Angela frowned, her expression darkening. "Lena, with your accelerator, I suggest that you be very careful in Junkertown. I've done some work there, and they weren't too keen on… any prosthetics that had any kind of modern feel to them. If it modeled on omnic tech, they wouldn't accept it."

Lena waved a hand in placation. "I've got two heavies. I think I'm good."

Fareeha grumbled, shoving herself onscreen, and Lena laughed.

"Okay, okay, I'll be careful, _mums_."

She struggled to say something appropriate but came up empty, so she let Lena and Angela talk a while, but Lena's discomfort seemed to grow with her own.

"Ah, um. Angela?" Lena looked away, red faced and chewing on her lips.

Angela blinked. "Yes?"

"Can I talk to Fareeha for a bit? It's… a secret."

Angela frowned and practically oozed worry and discomfort. Agitation ran like an electrical current under her her seemingly placid expression as she nodded and slid away gracefully, getting dressed out of the camera's view. Fareeha couldn't help but huff as the door closed on a morning opportunity to start things off right as Angela ducked out of the room, but she couldn't _complain_ about Lena calling. But to turn away Angela?

Weird. Even for Lena.

"Is it clear?"

Fareeha raised an eyebrow. "What is it, child?"

Lena scrunched up her face, as if thinking. "Well… I didn't think I'd get this far."

Fareeha thought it best to stay silent and did her best to keep her face neutral despite all of the questions and anxiety fluttering around inside her.

"On this mission or calling you."

"Why me?" The words felt like bramble briars in her mouth.

Lena shrugged, the light of her chronal accelerator bobbing and illuminating the pinkness in Lena's hair. A smile struggled its way to Fareeha's lips as Lena thought some more. For everyone's assumptions about Lena, she was quite a contemplative person. The problem was that contemplation and common sense didn't have much to do with one another.

"Well, I _do_ want to ask what you guys want as an anniversary present, and I want to do something nice for Angela considering…"

"That you left without a word or contact, and we thought you might be dead?" The words were flat, and a wave of relief washed over Fareeha that her words weren't sharper or more incendiary.

Lena rolled her eyes. "Did you _really_ think that I wouldn't be in _any_ contact?"

Fareeha just nodded. She didn't trust herself to say anything else at the moment.

Lena sighed, her whole body sagging and her face turning pensive. She looked so young in the blue light with such a forlorn expression, and Fareeha could only just barely grasp the concept that Lena was only a few years younger than she. How had she acted six years ago?

Surprisingly similarly to Lena.

Maybe that was why Fareeha couldn't find it in herself to fault the girl too much.

"Listen, Fareeha. I called you because I really want to know how things are _really_ going back home. I was too nervous to call Angela, and I know that it wasn't necessarily the best conversation even still. It's like she doesn't want to talk to me and-"

"Stop there." A spark flickered to life in Fareeha at criticism of Angela. "She's reacting to you, Lena. Don't forget that. You might as well have told us that you don't need us anymore."

Fareeha regretted saying anything immediately.

Lena's eyes dropped from the camera and didn't come back up. Her shoulders slumped even more, and she huddled closer to herself as if some unseen wind had given her a chill. "I know… but I do need you all," she whispered. She chewed on her lips and refused to look back up.

Uncomfortable sweat prickled under Fareeha's arms as she searched for a good reply. She didn't have her mother's quick wit. Instead, she had her father's fear of social interaction and questions and conflict - ironic for a soldier, but at least in battle, things made more sense even if there was significant ambiguity. She felt so _sure_ of herself then, but once anyone took her off the battlefield, that insecurity crept back in and she grew quiet.

Fareeha, trying to lighten the elephant on her chest, took a deep breath. "We're… doing alright, I think."

Lena's eyes met her own and the poor girl seemed to perk up a little.

Fareeha had gotten over being angry at Lena since there wasn't much good in it in the first place and seeing Lena be less anxious made _her_ less anxious. Her words came out a little easier.

"Angela is working herself incredibly hard, considering we're going to Brazil in the next week weeks, and everyone else is working equally as hard. We're debating leaving Aleksandra behind, but she would be a valuable asset in this setting." Fareeha sighed. "Jack, Torb, Winston, Angela, and my mother are all working themselves to the bone before we go. Different projects for different people, you know."

 _But it's all really the same, isn't it?_ The small voice in the back of her mind often chided her when her insecurities ran high. It often spoke with the voice of her mother. _How many more will die before you put an end to it?_

Lena frowned in the low light and looked up again, pensive. This time, Fareeha heard the horrible shrieking sounds of what sounded like a very large, very pissed off animal. The hair on the back of her neck prickled, and if she'd had any on her arms, she was sure it would be standing straight up. "Lena, are you safe?"

Lena's laugh was a little forced, and her eyes were not as kind as Fareeha remembered. In fact, those were the same eyes she'd seen after she'd been shot and rendered unable to fight - angry, scared, and filled with uncertainty. "Course I am, love. I'm the great and mighty _Tracer_."

Lena was dodging the point and throwing up her defenses in a smokescreen of humor. She hadn't changed too much… Not enough. Maybe she'd always be that way. A sinking feeling took its place back in her stomach. She didn't want to be on the phone anymore, and she found her eyes shifted to the rumpled pile of clothes beside the door. She loved the sweater on the floor and the way it hugged Angela's torso and drooped over her lovely arms.

"Listen… Fareeha…" Fareeha looked up at the hesitation in Lena's voice. "I've been… terrible, and I know that. I can't make up for what I've done, but I'm trying to fix _something_." Her voice shook. "I don't want to tell anyone else because I don't know who I can talk to, but you've always been there for me, even in my hardest times lately." Her eyes turned away from the camera and she blinked several times. Her voice was thick.

Fareeha didn't know what to say and apparently didn't have to as Lena just kept going, blinking fast and looking away. "I… fucked up really bad, Fareeha… I don't even know if she's alive anymore…"

"You can't afford to think that way anymore, Lena," Fareeha found herself saying. Her fingers - those strange metal things that had taken so long to get used to - itched to run through Lena's hair and give her comfort. She wanted to hold Lena close and just let the poor girl rest. She looked so tired… Tears jumped from Lena's eyes and landed on her cheeks, which she hastily and angrily scrubbed away. "You're out so far from home, and you have to hold onto her." Fareeha paused. "I think I remember Hana saying she's been trying to locate her in her spare time, but she hasn't had any luck."

Lena glanced back with glassy eyes. "Hana? I thought-"

Fareeha's heart squeezed with silent agony. The girl didn't know that Hana still supported her. It was so clear in that simple broken word. "Hana still supports you, Lena, even if she doesn't agree with you. She doesn't want you to hurt, and-" _Maybe_ _I shouldn't say it_. "If she can bring you home faster…"

Lena laughed, and two more lines of tears streaked down her cheeks, but this time, her laughter wasn't forced even if it _was_ sad. "I want to come home so bad, Fareeha. I kinda hate it here."

"Our arms are always open, habibti, but this mission is your own." The words from her own mouth made her sick. Her stomach churned in hellish uncertainty - the same feeling that plagued her when she'd worried about making it out alive in so many situations… Except now it wasn't a fear for her own safety as the unearthly scream from Lena's end cried desperately through her phone's speakers. "What _is_ that?"

Lena shrugged, scrubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. Fareeha caught a glimpse of nail polish and felt her lips twitch in a smile. It'd been a while since Lena had bothered to paint her nails.

"They call it a nightstalker. It's something that came around because of the radiation. Not really natural, I don't think, but they aren't sterile from what the lads say." She shivered, her eyes narrowed. "Anyway, I guess I should get going and rest. We're getting closer to Alice Springs, and I know it's gonna come down to a fight."

Fareeha opened her mouth to speak and a strange, strangled sound came out. Embarrassment plagued her, spreading a blush across her face like pestilence in medieval Europe, and she quickly covered the anxiety laden squeak with a fake cough. After she cleared her throat, she found herself without the right words. Her mother would have known, but Fareeha hadn't talked to her mother about this. She'd avoided talking about anything of value, mostly.

"Lena, be careful. Come home as soon as you can."

Weak words, but Lena smiled all the same. It wasn't forced, but it obviously didn't come easily either. She was struggling in a way that Fareeha hadn't thought about in a long time. She had the look that Fareeha herself had often had during her time after her accident.

Forcing a smile almost felt natural as people looked at her with such pity - her arms and legs blown clean off from the elbow and the knee. Clean off was too nice of an image. Phantom burning and ripping played over her metallic hands and enveloped her momentarily, the memory of stunned nothingness before true and utter agony set in.

She'd never felt anything like that.

She'd never experienced anything that painful since then.

Quite frankly - she laughed at herself on the inside at how ridiculous and blatantly obvious she felt the thought was - she never wanted to feel anything like that ever again.

But she still knew what it felt like to try to overcome that forced positivity while despair and fear feasted on your organs and poisoned your blood. She, too easily, remembered the fine lace of cobwebs that clouded her mind with ever-spreading doubt in herself, in her choices, in her _life_ and its value.

Lena's mind was full of those cobwebs.

"I'm being serious, Lena."

Lena looked away. "I know, Fareeha." She lapsed into silence, which was not completely uncomfortable, but broke it after a long minute. "Could you… do me a favor?"

Fareeha felt her right eyebrow creep up on her forehead.

The corner of Lena's mouth twitched. "Could you let me know… if things change? If everyone's okay?"

Fareeha nodded briskly. "Of course, Lena."

A pause.

"OH." Lena waved her free hand around, and her eyes lit up like city lights. "What do you guys want for your anniversary?" She wiggled, and Fareeha thought she could hear the sound of Lena's feet patting the dirt.

Fareeha smiled, but her words were somber. "You to come home."

Lena's excitement faltered momentarily, but she put on that smile again - the smile that was almost easy. "Don't worry, love. I'm on my way as soon as I get done here." She shrugged and rubbed at her neck with gloveless fingers. "It might miss your anniversary by a little bit, though."

Fareeha nodded. "Until next time, then, Lena."

Lena waved one last time before blinking away, leaving Fareeha looking down at her message box between herself and the girl that had just hung up. The last message between them hurt to look at, but Fareeha made her eyes go over the words several times to remember why she was still holding on. She knew. She knew in her own way what this felt like from the other side.

 **[12/26 6:07 pm im so so sorry]**

Fareeha didn't immediately get out of bed after hanging up with Lena. Instead, she lay there relishing the feeling of the cotton sheets on her naked skin and wishing that things were simpler. As she often did, she wondered what would have happened if she'd continued to live near her father in Canada and pursued a career in law, but she hadn't taken that road. She couldn't see herself in a courtroom anymore even though law had once been so intriguing to her. She couldn't see herself wearing pantsuits and pinning her hair back. She couldn't imagine having her full hearing in her right ear, and she sure as _hell_ couldn't imagine herself with her arms and legs in the flesh.

She couldn't image her life any other way than it was now - uncertain, adrenaline filled, and confusing.

She couldn't imagine settling down and being domestic with anyone that wasn't Angela Ziegler and their many adopted children.

Her mother's voice whispered in her head, _I didn't want this life for you, but you are more like me than you will ever know._

Fareeha grimaced. Her coffee date with her mother had gone surprisingly well, but that one sentence clanged around in her head like a baby banging on pots and pans with a metal ladle. Her thoughts tended to seize comments that pointed out her insecurities and subsequently beat her to death with them with the brute strength that only insecurity had.

She wondered where she went wrong so many times that she turned out alright but bruised up to hell and back.

And she wondered why she was so introspective.

Maybe it was growing up where she had - torn between the Overwatch headquarters being raised by a whole community and then with her father as her only contact and support.

She swung her legs out of bed and peeled off the sheet with dismay. It was getting late in the morning, and she had to be a productive member of society. _Unfortunately_.

She tiptoed around the squeaky floorboard and rummaged through her dresser for some simple clothes to get her to the bathroom, shower, and slip back into her intermediary bedroom-to-bathroom clothes, deciding that she sure as shit wasn't going to town. She settled on some sweatpants and a t-shirt she'd stolen from Angela - it was a little tight and short, but she didn't particularly care if anyone saw her belly button at home. She sighed and pulled a sports bra out of the drawer just above and pinched the metal slats of her finger as the drawer handle's screw loosened enough for the handle to trap a tiny bit of the plate between the wood and the metal. She yelped and dropped her underwear, shaking her hand with a deathly scowl at the drawer handle.

Things like this always happened when Angela wasn't around to see how much feeling Fareeha _did_ have, but most of that feeling stayed within those protective metal slats. She could feel, sure, but the sensations were imprecise. She could feel heat and cold and pressure. She could even feel Angela's delicate fingers brush against her forearm as she passed by, but it was still vague. Fareeha wondered if her mind tried to make up for the dulled sensation by attempting to recreate what she thought she needed to feel, but she couldn't be sure, and she surely couldn't tell Angela about the dullness. That might make the feeling trapped beneath those metal slats unbearable if anything managed to slip through. Angela had done an incredibly excellent job at making sure that Fareeha wasn't exposed, but the metal had to flex. The metal pulled against the core, and the core sent messages to the rest of Fareeha's nervous system, providing that capability to feel sensations.

Fareeha picked up her rumpled clothes on the floor and stalked out of the room, forgetting to skip the squeaky board and wincing before shooting one last dirty look at the treacherous drawer before slipping out of the room.

* * *

"Coffee, black, special import," Ana Amari growled in her comforting way as she slid the mug down the bar.

"I see you decided not to come and bring it to us this morning," Fareeha commented offhandedly as she stopped her mug's slide down the granite countertop. She raised the cup to her lips with a small smile she knew Ana would see.

It was hard to strike the right balance between snark and being an asshole, but Fareeha was getting better at it. She slurped her coffee contentedly and leaned against the countertop, watching her mother bustling about the kitchen with a mild expression. The pungent scent of onion filled the room, and soon enough, Ana started chopping up something - presumably the onion - and _seemingly_ minding her own business.

"What are you and little Miss Ziegler getting into today?" The question was offhanded and nonthreatening, but Fareeha's skin prickled - where she had it, at least.

She bit down a sarcastic comment and replied calmly - coolly even. _So much for her keeping her nose where it belongs_ … "I don't know yet. I just got off the phone with Lena."

The quiet noise of a knife thumping against a wooden cutting board stopped abruptly, cutting off the peacefully musical and regimented metronome of activity, and Ana set down her utensil, placing her hands on the counter. Fareeha took a sip of coffee and tried not to notice the rigidity in her mother's back. Thorny silence fell over the two of them.

"That girl's out for herself, now." And Ana resumed chopping her onions - she had so many, occasionally sliding them off into an oversized pot. "I can't say I don't understand her, but she picked a _hell_ of a time."

Fareeha frowned and took too big of a gulp of coffee. Her throat ached and her eyes watered. She flapped a hand and set her mug down too hard. Through a fit of coughing, she stammered out, "She's d-doing her best."

Ana shrugged, but Fareeha could see a smile on her face. "Been drinking long?"

Fareeha, being a responsible adult, stuck her tongue out at her mother but was cut off again by hacking. The metallic sound of vegetables hitting the bottom of the incredibly large pot rang out clear in the kitchen. A sweet and bitter smell seeped through the room with Ana's hands ripping green leaves.

Fareeha sniffed the air. "Thyme?"

"Bay," Ana corrected with no malice.

"Stock in there?"

"Not yet. I'm making the stock."

The conversation died a little, and Fareeha sighed to herself, wondering if her mother would ever sustain a meaningful conversation with anyone. Everyone else seemed to love her, but her words to Fareeha were often few and terse. Even their time together out on the town was mostly filled with silence and uncomfortable sweating. Fareeha was the one doing the sweating.

"So…" Fareeha attempted to drum up some more conversation, but her throat felt dry and tight. She slurped her coffee a little more vigorously.

"Fareeha, child, are you quite alright? You're acting very strangely."

Words tumbled from Fareeha's mouth like an unsightly waterfall of truth. "I'm thinking about trying to ask Angela to marry me. For real this time."

She hadn't even been _thinking_ about it, but something in Ana Amari's words were like a truth serum that pulled out what you thought about most.

Ana's words were quiet and kinder than Fareeha had heard in a long time. "I know. I found the ring."

Fareeha sputtered, spewing coffee back into her cup. "You _what_? Mama! That was _hidden_."

Ana shrugged. "Not hidden enough."

Fareeha pushed her mug back, suddenly tasting the bitterness too acutely to want to keep drinking. Ana shouldn't have been able to find it no matter where Fareeha put it because she _shouldn't_ be turning over the whole house to _snoop_. Memories of childhood cropped up in Fareeha's mind - hiding her small things for no real reason other than fearing that her mother might not approve, Gabriel giving her candy and promising not to tell Ana, Jack taking her places and keeping it secret… She knew why she did what she did. She was so afraid of disappointing her mother that it drove her to near neuroticism.

Anger wasn't the reaction that came through, which surprised Fareeha a bit. Instead, quiet, tired resignation overwhelmed her. She looked at the coffee cup sitting a few inches away from her hands and could only think of this whole schtick as an elaborate ruse to placate her into submission - to quiet her temper and subdue it through favors.

She was a suspicious woman.

Just like her mother.

Fareeha changed the subject to deter her own incredulity, which wasn't quite full fledged incredulity. She wasn't _surprised_ that Ana had turned over the whole house over and over and found the ring on one of her, probably, many passes.

"What are you making?"

"Would you like to help?"

Fareeha frowned. "Sure."

"Good. Now. Get out another pot and bring some water to boil. I'll throw in some more vegetables for it to make a stock for Mei." Ana shook her head. "In all my days, I never thought I would be making food for a vegetarian."

Fareeha did as she was told and slipped off the barstool, skirting around her mother and bringing down a pot two sizes smaller than the copper one on the stove. She set it on the burner for Ana to throw in more onion and ripped bay leaves, but in this pot, she added mushrooms large, holey mushrooms.

"Morels?"

Ana smiled her quiet smile and nodded.

"Those are so expensive, though."

Ana rolled a shoulder while she smashed cardamom pods. "I'm not in any financial pinch, and these were nicely dried at the market. I thought Mei would like something substantial with her soup since we're having lamb."

It was just making conversation, but it wasn't charged with any hostility. The tension in Fareeha's shoulders released its deathgrip bit by bit until she could relax and smile freely near her mother. They talked happily and casually as Ana carved up meat and made a stock then started frying it. Angela would probably make a fuss about how the smell of frying meat would never come out of the clothes in the laundry room; then, she'd make a fuss about the design of the house, asking who would think to put a laundry room so close to the kitchen.

Fareeha smiled to herself.

This was what she always wanted from her mother - to be able to sit side by side and make small talk and enjoy one another, not to lunge at each other's throats like starving wolves. In this moment, she could forget the struggle between them. They'd had plenty of moments like this before. A calm fell over Fareeha's spirit as she helped her mother prepare what could only be a several-day-long-preparation, traditional wedding meal.

* * *

Fareeha pulled on her blazer and huffed, looking into the mirror with butterflies in her stomach. Her mother had helped her choose the outfit when they'd gone out a few days ago - another shockingly peaceful time between them. A blue blazer, a crisp white, collared shirt, khaki pants, and brown oxfords. She'd left her hair the way she usually wore it, but decided to put on earrings and makeup - something even more rare than whole good days with her mother. She'd also bought a few nice outfits for the coming three days.

She glanced down at the phone sitting on the counter.

Lena hadn't answered.

Fareeha had sent Lena a message nearly three hours before, warning her about the coming evening, but she'd failed to take into account the massive expanse of time zones between the two of them.

She couldn't help but think that the whole ensemble made her look like a business major from her college back in Canada, but she felt comfortable in it. The blazer would hide her horrible sweat rings while fending off the wind and cold, and the shirt was lightweight underneath so it wouldn't bunch or pinch. She'd had the pants for a while, so they didn't look nearly as crisp and shiny. Her breath came easy even though her heart beat hard. She wouldn't be asking _today_ , but the knowledge that it was coming so soon made Fareeha nervous. The train ride and the expedition as a whole felt invigorating. She loved going places and doing new things, but there was another whole tier to this very confusing cake.

She'd asked Angela several times and had never been this nervous, but something was different about this time around. She'd asked Angela to dress up to go out that night, to which Angela laughed and kissed her happily. Fareeha could still feel the smile on Angela's lips as they pressed against her own. Their dates together had been mostly restricted to home and dinner in bed. And then dessert of the most carnal kind.

Fareeha made dinner reservations under her own name instead of a pseudonym, being lesser known to the Overwatch scene and therefore less recognizable. Besides, most of the time, if cameras caught her, she was in a giant blue suit with her face covered. Her tattoo under her eye was her most identifiable feature, but people would be hard pressed to see it under the cover of her Raptora visor.

Angela would probably get recognized by the general populace, however, and that made Fareeha increasingly uncomfortable. The last thing she wanted was to be spotted and interrupted by either fans or authorities, even though the authorities around the area had done their best to be sympathizers to the Overwatch crew that lived there. Of course the authorities _knew_ about their location and were sympathetic enough to keep them all hidden, but there was only so much they could do in the grand scheme of things. Crossing the border into Germany meant a few things - a stop, a check, and a trying time where they'd have to lay low to board the next train, but what it did _not_ mean was total ridicule and terrible death, which they risked every time anyone left the safehouse.

Fareeha's phone buzzed loudly against the granite countertop in the bathroom, and she jumped, her hair swishing and the brass beads in her hair clacking too loudly.

 **[2/13 14:56 are you all still free i was kinda sleeping xx]**

Fareeha sighed and tapped quickly, her thumb fudging some of the letters as a result of the shakes she'd developed from waiting.

 **[2/13 15:00 I'm about to leave with Angela, if you still want to do your thing.]**

 **[2/13 15:00 no worries love. guess your phones gonna be off for a few days C;]**

 **[2/13 15:01 Lena.]**

 **[2/13 15:01 alright alright alright. go on and get all cozy. i told hana so she should be? ready to roll]**

 **[2/13 15:02 Your number of question marks is disconcerting.]** Fareeha smiled to herself, but the expression almost felt foreign to her face at first. She'd kept her eyebrows knit tightly in concern and her eyes lowered all day. Angela had been mysteriously missing for most of the day, tucked away doing… something… Fareeha hadn't even seen her pack, but Angela's small, sunshine yellow suitcase sat cheerfully by the door of their tiny living space.

 **[2/13 15:06 nonsense, love. are you ready?]**

Fareeha sighed and moved quickly from the bathroom, patting her neck lightly with a hand towel to make sure she wasn't sweating too much before slipping out. She padded down the hall, her shiny, brown oxfords clunking pleasantly on the hardwood floor, to Hana's room whereupon she knocked and waited patiently. Hana threw the door open with a huge, genuine grin that reached her eyes and made them sparkle pleasantly.

"You ready?"

Fareeha sighed. "It's really not my party. I'm just the other one in this relationship."

Then, she grimaced at herself and how bitter the words sounded out loud. She didn't really _feel_ like she was a lesser member in hers and Angela's relationship, but she definitely was, if she bothered to look at it at all. Hana noticed Fareeha's look with a shrewd one of her own, and a shrewd look it was. In a way, it had the shrewdness of Angela and the smugness of Lena.

Lena...

 _Lena always did have a way with flashy entrances_.

With a sigh, Fareeha followed Hana through the main floor and down the stairs to the basement where everyone lounged comfortably except Angela, who propped herself leisurely and primly beside Ana, her black dress falling in rippling waterfalls around her lovely, legging-clad calves. Fareeha could easily envision the outfit with the long coat she would inevitably wear to the train station.

Another thing struck Fareeha.

Angela's hair was down.

Fareeha couldn't help but smile as she leaned against the doorway to the stairwell. She wouldn't go too far in the room. She'd already talked to Lena.

"Hana, is this going to take long? I have some diagnostics running on Athena again since we managed to find that bug and-"

"Winston, please," Hana scoffed as she approached the television. "You can wait ten minutes. I'm sure Athena doesn't mind."

The television turned on by itself, thanks to Athena, and a bedraggled, dirty face filled the very large screen.

"Just let me know before you patch me through," the woman quipped with a wide smile.

"You're already on," Athena replied smugly.

"Shit!" The distress was genuine. "Athena wh-" She stopped and shook her head, waving with that same smile on her face.

Everyone started and shouted, "Lena!" at roughly the same time.

Winston moved closer toward the screen, blocking out Jack, Jesse, Genji, and Mei. "Lena, what are you doing?"

Zarya's heavily accented voice rose over the chatter. "Why do you look like that?" A pause. "Is good look for you."

"We don't know if the line is safe!"

Lena put her free hand up in placation. "It's safe, I'm sure. I had a little _talk_ with the person who keeps trying to keep tabs on us, and she agreed to piss off." Lena shrugged, her hand still up but relaxed. "So, uh, hi, everyone! It's… it's been too long."

Fareeha watched her family surge with questions and activity, all trying to talk to the prodigal child. It went on for a good ten minutes before Fareeha caught Angela's misty eyes and gestured toward the door with her head. Angela hesitated, looking back at Lena, and Fareeha mouthed, "She'll call you soon."

Angela nodded and rose slowly, ducking away with only minimal notice - only Ana's full attention was on Angela and her daughter. She nodded to Fareeha with what Fareeha thought was a wink - it was hard to tell anymore with the eyepatch.

As the two lovers passed out of the room and up the stairwell, Angela whispered, "Why did we have to leave?"

Her voice shook slightly, and Fareeha knew that she was holding back tears.

"It was Lena's suggestion so that we could escape more easily and go where we're going. Our train leaves in an hour." Fareeha rolled a shoulder as she opened their room and plucked the two suitcases off the ground without much effort. "She said that she would call you whenever we get to the hotel or… after a while."

Angela's pale skin blossomed with pink around her cheeks and neck. "Where are we going?"

Fareeha smiled, but her stomach twisted. She genuinely hoped Angela would like their destination, but she could think of ways to make up for it if she didn't find it too exciting.


	40. Cleopatra

Angela found her heart beating a little too hard and fast for her own liking as she followed Fareeha down the street and into the train station. She wore a wide brimmed hat to hide her face despite how it clashed against her coat, hoping that she at least looked intentional in her dress. She didn't know where the two of them were going. All Fareeha had said was, "Do you want to go on a three day trip with me before all hell breaks loose?"

Of course Angela agreed.

It still didn't stave off the horrible feeling creeping in her stomach. Fareeha was too mild of a person to just jump into something without knowing the background or planning for a very long time unless… Angela pushed the thought out of her mind. She'd been very clear that she wasn't interested in getting engaged while everything was so horribly confusing and dangerous. She know that Fareeha knew that she couldn't bear the thought of investing so wholly in a partner for them to die in the middle of the confusion. She couldn't bear the thought of feeling Gabriel's hands on her skin when they weren't his and becoming afraid of her lover.

Angela Ziegler was afraid of commitment.

Fareeha's tension facilitated some of Angela's own. That was what was making her the most anxious.

If Fareeha had been her typical kind of quiet and relaxed, Angela wouldn't have had to chew up three antacids with her water she'd purchased while Fareeha bought tickets to… wherever.

 _A five hour train ride would put us in a number of places…_

Over the last fifty years, continental Europe had undergone an incredible shift with its transportation system, opening up more available train routes and more direct paths instead of having to hop trains and buses to get wherever you wanted to go, not to mention that trains had become more efficient and effective. Angela couldn't help but remember how she, as barely more than a child, would go galavanting off on her own and take the ten hour ride to see her parents from the Swiss headquarters after their move northward. Now, that same ride would take four hours at most.

Angela cracked the lid on her water bottle again and took a long sip, relishing the coolness in her hot throat and her skin prickling in benign chills. Her eyes couldn't seem to focus on anyone's face in the milling crowds, all the faces blurring together, and she closed her eyes as she leaned against the doorway to an open shop. Her eyes, though, managed to lock onto Fareeha as she meandered through the people, occasionally smiling down at people much smaller than she - children especially. Angela couldn't help but smile against the plastic rim of her water bottle, fiddling with the ridges of the lid with her free hand. Fareeha.

Fareeha…

Fareeha's eyes met Angela's, and something twisted inside Angela - something bittersweet maybe? Something a little melancholy?

Could they keep pretending that carrying on like nothing was going on in the world was all normal?

No…

No they couldn't, but one more time together unperturbed before the world fell apart for the third time in Angela's life would be a better choice than sitting in silence, worrying about the potentials for the rapidly approaching time ahead. Once they went to Brazil, they all knew, things would only pick up speed and reach terminal velocity much more quickly. They had their hands on a large enough snowball and were about to push it off a very long hill. The snowball wouldn't get bigger. The snowball would cause a global avalanche.

"Angela," Fareeha said in her comforting way, putting the slightest bit more emphasis on the second syllable of her name. "Are you feeling unwell? You're pale."

Angela shook her head, trying to smile a little easier. "I'm fine. When's our train leave? Soon, hopefully."

Fareeha bobbed her head left and right noncommittally, the beads in her hair clicking softly in the general cacophony of the train station. "It boards in an hour, leaves in an hour and a half. Are you hungry?"

Angela shook her head but remembered how long it had been since she'd had anything more substantial than a handful of almonds. "I should at least nibble on something."

Fareeha offered her arm, which Angela took gratefully, putting Fareeha between herself and the crowded station. "I know a place that has fast service and good food." She paused, a darling blush spreading on her soft cheeks. "Well, mama said it has all that. I haven't been there, myself. Said she and Rein went there after they got here."

Angela raised an eyebrow and her fear and uncertainty dissipated in the light of a joke too good to pass up. "Speaking of dear Reinhardt, are you going to call him daddy to his face now?"

Fareeha stumbled and tripped a few paces, stopping and glaring at Angela with her bottom lip poking out just a bit. Her face was redder than the Valentine's Day decorations hanging from every available space in the train station. "That was a _joke_!"

Angela stood on her toes and kissed that lovely pouty lip gently. "I know, liebling."

Fareeha, still frowning her petulant, childish frown, rolled her eyes and started walking again. "I'm glad _you're_ smiling."

Angela couldn't help but laugh, and the fear that overtook her abated even more. It only barely tickled her spine at that point, and she decided that she would at least _try_ to have a good time doing…. Whatever….

After their hearty, warm, comforting meal in the low light with a rather large glass of wine, Angela was feeling more than a little relaxed. She'd had to listen for the train boarding announcement since Fareeha couldn't hear very well in this particular environment, and she was pleasantly surprised to hear the train's destination was Stuttgart. She'd had fond memories of visiting family in Stuttgart when she was a child - before she fell into the hole of Overwatch - and enjoying those train rides back to her hometown near Zürich. Stuttgart was always a pleasant place in Angela's mind - the countryside and the liveliness of the people combined with the historic places. Besides, she often found herself working at the military base in Stuttgart when she started her program under her mentor. He was American and so was the base, but they needed as many warm bodies as possible. Between her family ties to the community and her reputation as a medical prodigy, she managed to squeeze into the small niche that had become her passion and obsession - genetic enhancement and regenerative cellular theory. Little did she know, at the time, that her mentor was scouting for an organization she'd dreamed about, and little did she know that her family friend, Reinhardt Wilhelm, had been watching her and recommended her to her mentor for recruitment.

All of that was so long ago…

But is that why had Fareeha decided to go to Stuttgart?

Probably not.

"Train C, leaving for Stuttgart, Germany, departing in ten minutes," Angela heard from the platform. She clung tighter to Fareeha's warm metal hand. Goodness, she was glad that she built internal warming cores in each arm to keep up with Fareeha's body temperature - for personal _and_ practical reasons.

The two pushed forward, Angela a little more clumisly than Fareeha, which made her hat fall off into the crowd. She sighed, knowing that she'd never get it back with the surges of people coming in great waves, crashing and breaking against the shore and bottleneck of the train's few entry ports.

They ambled through to the back of the car they'd entered and sat still hand in hand. Angela situated herself closer to the window so it would be less likely for someone to notice her, and Fareeha propped herself up to create a human barrier between Angela and the rest of the car. The wedjat under Fareeha's eye seemed more prevalent than ever, framed neatly by her hair and slanted almost parallel to the lapel hem on her chest. Angela wriggled out of her coat and draped it across her legs - not out of cold but out of modesty as her dress rode up when she sat. She knew Fareeha wouldn't mind, and she _was_ wearing leggings, but she was self conscious all the same. The slight fuzz from the wine seemed to increase into a full fuzz with Fareeha sitting quietly beside her, after pulling a book out of her messenger bag and replacing it overhead in the luggage rack. It was one of her more adult books.

With Fareeha's deep breathing to ground her and the lurching train reaching a steady hum and pace, Angela found herself being lulled to sleep.

* * *

Angela woke with a start, a lurching throwing her from sleep into a place she should have recognized. The discontent and disturbed feeling of jamais vu still coiled tightly in the pit of her stomach like a viper even though she recognized and pieced together her journey to and onto the train that would take her and her beloved to Stuttgart.

Fareeha, who might have seemed alert to anyone who didn't know her intimately, blinked blearily, the color in her cheeks pale compared to their normal warmth. She'd been sleeping just as soundly as Angela had. "I guess we're here," Fareeha mumbled in her sleepiest, groggiest, who-the-fuck-just-woke-me-up kind of voice.

Angela stretched her legs before standing. She, like anyone who'd ever been on public transportation, waited for the main rush to abate before slipping out of her seat behind Fareeha, who pulled down the luggage easily and with the smallest grunt. They disembarked into the wide platform of the S-Bahn station in Angela's favorite town. Just stepping off the train and onto the platform brought back nostalgic memories of the bustling station with its fragrant food and flower stalls intermixed with tchotsky shops and other touristy things. Her stomach rolled in a low growl, the indigestion she'd suffered so greatly before the train ride not even bothering to rear its ugly head.

Her eyes fell on a food stall - in the same place it had always been, and her mouth watered. It had been _ages_ since she'd had one of her favorite foodstuffs. She'd never been able to allow herself to eat it around those she tried to influence positively, but… she was on vacation. She could afford some of the greasiest food she could manage. She didn't look behind her as she approached the stand.

"Angela Ziegler, is that you?" asked a wrinkled, stooped man behind the counter. His eyes were squinted nearly closed from excessive wrinkles, and his round spectacles made him look like a storybook mole.

She felt the very large Fareeha bump her back gently as she greeted the older man, a family friend of her family's friends. When she was a child, she remembered going to his sheep farm more than once and spending time with his grandchildren. The two chatted for a time as he handed out sandwich after sandwich, and Angela's stomach became too loud and pressing of a matter to ignore.

Angela noticed Fareeha looking down with a frown, apparently having heard the most recent growl. Her eyes were still sleepy, and Angela glanced over her shoulder at the large clock in the middle of the platform. It was incredibly late for the normal population. How the station was still up and running baffled Angela since the station, in her memory, started winding down at around this time. Most people wouldn't be disembarking from a nine o' clock arrival and going for a cruise around the station. Most would be going straight for the hotel or back home.

She motioned to the elderly man behind the counter. "What's got this place so busy?"

He smiled, his actual eyes almost becoming visible. "Oh, it's the tenth annual Valentine's Festival, my dear. It certainly has been a time since you've come this way."

Angela smiled. "The last ten years…"

The elderly grandfather put up a placating hand and in the other offered two of the largest, most delicious looking sandwiches she'd ever seen in cardboard trays with fried potatoes lining one side.

Fareeha accepted them, releasing the handle of her own suitcase. "How much, sir?"

The man waved his hands emphatically. "No, no. This is on the house. Angela was such a doll… Well… It's good to see her again, especially after…" He trailed off, looking wise and melancholy.

He knew, and that diminished some of Angela's appetite.

"Thank you, Mr. Otmar."

He waved. "Be well, Angela, darling."

The two departed the older man's company, each carrying a sandwich and dragging rolling suitcases. Angela desperately wanted to sit down on a bench and dig in while the sandwich was still hot, but they went to the bus stop instead to manage to their hotel before it got too terribly late. Sitting at the chilly bus stop, Angela rested her feet, which were swollen from the long train ride. She really wanted to get to the hotel and put her feet up, snuggle down in some pajamas, and snuggle up to Fareeha.

"The bus comes in another twenty minutes, if you want to go ahead and eat." Fareeha kicked back beside Angela and took a large bite of her own sandwich, eyes growing wide. "Holy shit."

A laugh bubbled up in Angela's throat.

"What _is_ this?" she asked as she took another bite.

"Lamb weisswurst without the casing made into meatballs, seasoned with cardamom, ginger, parsley, lemon peel, and nutmeg, with homemade breadcrumbs, sauteed onions, bacon, Bavarian mustard, and gruyere melted onto the toasted roll. The potatoes were rolled in potato flakes, baked, fried, and baked again." She'd heard the ingredient list about a thousand times in her childhood to the point where she could recite it in her sleep even still.

Fareeha looked over at Angela, a sauteed onion hanging from her carefully pinched lips, her mouth too full. She nodded vigorously.

Angela couldn't help but laugh, and she, too, ate with a happiness she'd been missing for a very long time.

* * *

Once the two of them arrived and checked in at the pleasant little hotel, their bellies full of warm comfort food, Angela quickly stripped out of her dress and jumped into her most comfortable, matching pajamas. She'd gone to great lengths to find comfortable _and_ matching pajamas, and it was well worth the effort. Fareeha also had her own matching pajamas, but she chose to snuggle down in a robe and pour herself a glass of wine.

"None for me?" Angela asked from the bed.

Fareeha smiled as she approached the large, lavish bed. "I thought you were cutting back."

There was no malice in the words, but Angela felt some of her usual tension creeping back into her shoulders. She tried to keep her voice light. "Oh, well, I thought that since this was some kind of _occasion_ …"

Fareeha laughed, her eyes crinkling in the most genuine and carefree smile Angela had seen in awhile. She turned, taking a sip from her own glass, and walked back to the bar.

"You know, dear, we could buy our own wine instead of taking the hotel's. I know a great little wine place a few streets over."

Fareeha didn't say anything, but Angela saw her pause before pouring the white wine in Angela's cup. She turned around, still smiling warmly even though it wasn't as wide, and Angela noticed the very slight tremor in Fareeha's hands.

Angela blinked, her heart sinking. "Fareeha?" She hadn't brought any tools. "What's wrong?"

Fareeha cocked her head and approached the bed once more, handing Angela's glass to her a little clumsily.

"Your hands are shaking. There must be a problem in the stabilization chip that I-"

Angela found her growing anxiety halted by warm lips on her own and a familiar hand on her cheek. She tasted the wine on Fareeha's mouth and smelled the perfume on her neck. Fareeha pulled back, looking away sheepishly.

"It's not the stabilizer," She said softly. "You'll probably laugh but… I'm a little nervous."

Angela sat more upright, pushing herself up with her free hand and setting her wine glass down on the nightstand beside her. "Nervous?"

Fareeha rolled a shoulder and took a sip of wine again, her cheeks brightened with a blush never combatted even in the slightest. Tenderness blossomed within Angela's chest and affected her in the same way alcohol did - just with different feelings. She reached over and touched Fareeha's hand, and the trembling stopped under Angela's inspective gaze only to start again when Angela turned her eyes upward to Fareeha's face.

"You'll laugh," she reiterated, still looking away.

Angela squeezed the unyielding metal between her fingers. Concern caressed her heart and mind like a noxious fog. "I promise I won't laugh."

Fareeha glanced up and placed her wine glass on her own nightstand. "I'm… nervous because… It's been a really long time since we went on… an actual date. And… An actual vacation."

Angela blinked and found herself waiting for more than that, but nothing else came from Fareeha's sweet lips except shallow, apprehensive breaths. Before she could stop herself, she barked a harsh, ugly, incredulous laugh. "Fareeha, _please_."

Fareeha reeled backward but didn't pull her hand from Angela's. "You said you wouldn't laugh!"

Angela leaned over and kissed the corner of Fareeha's mouth. "I lied because I was expecting something much more dire."

Dramatically, Fareeha threw herself back onto the mass of pillows with a comedic _thwump_. She pulled her hand gently from Angela's and crossed her arms over her robed chest petulantly. Angela pushed down one of the five pillows leaned over and kissed Fareeha's cheek a few times.

Breaking her pouting session, Fareeha turned and caught a quick peck from Angela. Fareeha put a gentle hand on Angela's face to catch her from bestowing another one of those smooches. A sour little feeling seeped into Angela's stomach - bad milk in an upset tummy. "Hey, listen, Angela?"

Angela backed up, trying her damndest to keep her facial expression on the more cheerful side of neutral. "What is it?"

Angela didn't like Fareeha's expression very much. The darkness in her eyes fertilized that terrible pit in her stomach that tried to grow a terrible, terrible tap root in the too eager, insecure soil of her heart.

"If you don't like it here…" Fareeha's shy tenderness made that alien plant shrivel up and die away.

 _I shouldn't blemish this precious time with my beloved with something as insignificant as insecurity_ , Angela reassured herself again. _She's just worried… But why…?_

Angela turned her face to kiss the palm of Fareeha's hand, and the warm metal's familiarity comforted Angela even more. "Fareeha… I don't know how you knew, but I couldn't be happier."

Fareeha smiled back, still nervous. "Ah, I… have some contacts."

Angela rolled her eyes in an attempt to give Fareeha a little more to hold onto. "Oh, please. I know you had to talk to Reinhardt to figure out this much. I know we've talked about it some, but I didn't think you'd remember specifics."

"Hey!" Fareeha protested, pulling away from Angela's kisses again only to be pursued, and Angela just kept kissing that sweet, beautiful face. Between kisses, Fareeha managed a strangled "I remember things! I just-" _kiss_ "had to ask-" _kiss_ "for-" _kiss_ "some advice!"

Angela rolled back. Her nervousness had completely subsided and been replaced by something else - something a little less obstreperous but still incredibly pressing.

"I have some advice for you," she found herself saying before shifting to throw a leg over Fareeha's waist, situating herself directly over the beautiful, brilliant woman beneath her.

Fareeha's face, though _very_ pink, brightened and her eyes glinted with a familiar sparkle.

Fareeha didn't need advice.

Fareeha never needed advice.

* * *

Soft light awoke Angela again, the warm body beside her shifting a bit to gently toss another arm around the exposed Angela.

"Aren't you cold, habibti?"

Angela pushed her back up to Fareeha's lovely skin. The cold hadn't bothered Angela too much with the space heater of a woman beside her, but with attention drawn to it, it seemed that the outside chill settled on Angela's skin like a delicate dew. She flippantly flipped the sheet over her exposed torso and snuggled deeper down in the bedding.

"A bit." She peeked up and glanced over her shoulder with a sleepy smile. The last vestiges of sleep clung to her eyes, making them gritty and eager to close again, but her internal alarm clock rang out loud and clear and encouraged movement.

Fareeha seemed to sense Angela's own antsy-ness and gave her a light squeeze around the waist and kissed her bare shoulder. "Do you want to go and get a shower?"

Angela closed her eyes and let Fareeha's warmth wash over her with every kiss.

"Only if you'll come with me."

Fareeha's snort - her warm breath on Angela's back - sent chills over Angela's skin in stirring anticipation. "Oh, _darling_ , do you think I intended anything else?"

Angela's heart stutter-stepped.

The two managed to get out of the hotel a little before noon, much to Fareeha's behest.

"It's probably going to be busy in the town today, from what Reinhardt told me. Apparently he passed through around this time last year and ended up getting roped into the festival because he's a _fucking_ giant."

Angela blinked and looked up at Fareeha. It was a rare day that she swore in casual conversation or in conflict. Swearing was usually relegated to the bedroom for certain activities, in Fareeha's case.

Fareeha didn't even glance down at Angela, but she practically _radiated_ a nervous miasma, her hands tapping metronomically empty surfaces as she passed, her feet keeping an uneven beat, her soft throat clearing providing some strange percussion. Angela felt her own shoulders tense after only a little while out of the hotel, and they'd still not reached where they were going, which was, presumably, the Valentine's Day festival closer to the center of town at the Schlossplatz.

Angela squeezed Fareeha's hand, admiring how she'd planned out the hote'ls location in the town - not too far away to walk almost everywhere but far enough away to not get too distracted or disturbed by typical town hubbub. Maybe talking would being Fareeha's anxiety down… "You know, when I was here last, I'd gone to a flower festival and ended up resuscitating someone on the spot."

Fareeha looked down with a sparkling smile, squeezing Angela's fingers lightly between her own. "Really, now?"

Angela nodded and pulled her scarf a little further up around her face in the wake of a brisk wind. She nodded. "Reinhardt was there." She waved a hand. "I'm fairly sure it was staged but the resuscitation was very, _very_ real. I think that was my last test before they recruited me into Overwatch for good. I highly doubt they would have let the poor man die, but I was incredibly young and incredibly afraid." She shrugged, ignoring Fareeha's amusement. "They wove me a crown of yellow flowers and white ones and…" A thought struck Angela. "I think I still have at _least_ the garland they made for me."

Fareeha stopped and huffed. "You're ridiculous, Angela Ziegler."

Panic seized Angela's chest and she flapped her arms wildly. "Don't!"

Fareeha rolled her eyes in a way that held no animosity nor combative nature but didn't push too hard, and Angela's panic subsided bit by bit. "I don't think anyone's listening in. It's safe here."

Angela knew she couldn't keep the doubt off of her face as she started walking again. Gabriel had always made her wonder where he was going to be in their few years together. He'd plagued her with paranoia and an undercurrent of fear that she was being watched. She was always afraid. When Overwatch collapsed, her name had been smeared in ink and ridicule in every kind of magazine. They'd blamed so much on her programs…

Ever since, she hated being seen in public. She'd hated her name being said in public because the public eye would expose her for what she was - a fraud. A failure.

She shook her head to clear her thoughts and pulled a little more on Fareeha's hand, attempting to leave her thoughts behind her like a dark cloud.

Fareeha stopped again, pulling Angela aside on the sidewalk to pull her away from an oncoming surge of people. Her voice and touch were softer than just before. "I'm sorry, Angela. I wasn't thinking…"

Angela shrugged and smiled reassuringly, but fatigue rolled over her like a steamroller. "It's fine, liebling."

Fareeha's brow still remained creased though as they started walking again. Fareeha sometimes had a hard time understanding and got frustrated, but her frustration usually would be reflected inward. Chills that had nothing to do with the weather crawled over Angela's skin as she remembered Fareeha's harsh words in Venice. She'd not been wrong then. She wasn't wrong now. She wasn't being watched, and she definitely wasn't under any surveillance.

Gabriel wouldn't find her here.

She'd never told him about this part of her life.

Fareeha's hand became too warm in the overcompensation for the cold weather, and Angela's hand began slipping on the metal slats from sweaty palms. Angela looked up at her pensive girlfriend and took her arm instead.

"What's troubling you?"

Fareeha shrugged casually, but her face betrayed her nonchalant air. "We don't have to go, if you're uncomfortable."

Angela shook her head, feeling another bud of guilt begin to bloom. "No, this place is safe."

Fareeha glanced down with a small smile that barely changed from its typical firm line, but her facade broke in nervous laughter, her eyes shifting away from Angela's as they continued walking. "I'm kinda nervous, Ang."

Angela raised both her eyebrows. "You? Nervous? _Never_. I never would have guessed."

Fareeha laughed again, and the chilly air didn't seem nearly as biting. "I don't know. Maybe this is…" She circled one of her hands and nearly clocked a pedestrian, making her apologize profusely. The lady walked away with a scowl to match Fareeha's. "Maybe this is _lame_. Maybe I should have thought of something better."

The crowds of people thickened as they passed the Kunstmuseum and crossed the street. Angela was beginning to realize her boots weren't meant for walking seven blocks, and her heart sank a bit as they crunched down the sidewalk.

Fareeha must have noticed. "Are _you_ alright?"

Angela rolled a shoulder. "My feet."

Fareeha nodded. "There's a cafe near the plaza, if Reinhardt told me right. We can catch some very late breakfast if you want."

Grateful, Angela nodded, and Fareeha steered her toward the far end of the bustling plaza and toward a mostly empty building near the far end of the Schlossplatz, closer to the Neues Schloss castle. Warm air blasted onto Angela's face a near meter from the doorway, and her feet stopped crunching on the thin layer of snow and clomped onto the brick sidewalk just as powdery white flakes began falling from the cloudy sky. Fareeha's electric nervousness still charged the air.

Shortly after sitting, a young waiter clad in overly frilly attire took their order and presented coffee to both Angela and Fareeha's liking, an assortment of fruits, and several pastries that they hadn't ordered. The waiter insisted, and Angela caught Fareeha nodding to the waiter with a mischievous smile.

 _My love, what are you planning?_

Fingers interlaced, the two sat and took their time in the warm, quiet ambiance of this tiny cafe. Angela even helped herself to _two_ danishes. The crowds outside ebbed and flowed with the falling snow, festivities cranking up despite the inconsistent groups.

"Fareeha?" Angela asked absently after a sip of coffee.

Fareeha looked up from her own up, her eyes shifting from another couple across the cafe to Angela's own eyes. Her stare was… intense. Her eyes, for once, were completely unreadable, and her body language didn't say anything in particular either. "Yes?"

"What's the real reason we're here?"

Fareeha took a too big sip of coffee and started coughing. Angela noticed the waiter look up from behind the coffee bar toward their table. No one else looked their way, though. After Fareeha slurped at her orange juice she'd ordered a few minutes before, her eyes avoided Angela's when she replied, "Just wanted to get away with you."

Smug satisfaction seeped into Angela's expression, and she could _feel_ it. "Oh, I think it's more than that." She scooted her chair closer, making it squall a bit on the tile floor, and propped her head in her hands as her elbows rested on the table. "I think it's much more than that. What did Reinhardt set you up for?"

Fareeha looked up from her half-eaten plate with obvious shock. "What?"

"Who set you up for this stuff?"

Fareeha leaned back in her chair, looking confused, but Angela's excitement only grew. Fareeha usually wasn't that good at hiding surprises nor covering for anyone else's. This meant that there was something _extremely_ big going to go down - probably today.

"Angela, I don't-" The "g" in Fareeha's address almost sounded like the guttural sound from her native tongue, and Angela felt a breaking point rapidly approaching. She was going to find out.

"Tell me."

Fareeha, pausing a moment to take a breath, put her hands flat on the table, the metal reflecting the cafe's can lights in neat ribbons. "This is my idea."

Her voice was soft enough to rein in Angela's exponentially growing excitement and hone it into a single point, allowing her to think more rationally. Sometimes, she got too excited, but it usually only happened when people were keeping secrets and she wanted to _know_.

 _Got her._ "What's your idea?"

Fareeha opened her mouth and smiled a wicked smile that made Angela's stomach explode with butterflies. She crossed her legs and shifted under Fareeha's intense gaze, which made Fareeha raise an eyebrow.

"I still got it," she said idly as she sat back in her chair, smiling.

Angela's mouth fell open on well oiled hinges. "Did you just _play_ me?"

Fareeha slurped at her orange juice in mock innocence.

The waiter approached, offering to refill their cups, but they both declined, asking for the check.

"Oh, your bill has been paid for by that kind lady over there!" He pointed, but noticed that no one was sitting where a half-eaten pastry and half-full glass of coffee-milk still remained. The waiter frowned. "Oh, she must have left, but… she left this for you! I don't… understand, but she said that you two would know what this was."

The kind waiter handed Fareeha, who was closer, a purple, holographic card. Fareeha frowned. "I don't know what this is. Do you, rouhi?"

Angela took the card and noted the stylized skull with markings around the eye sockets. She felt like she'd seen it before, a subtle nudge nagging at the edges of her mind, but she couldn't place it. She handed the card back to Fareeha with a shake of her head. "I'll get Hana to run it?"

The waiter shrugged. "She tipped well and paid for your breakfast, so that sounds like a plus to me."

Fareeha and Angela both smiled up at the young man and thanked him again before leaving the cafe. Angela noticed Fareeha slip the card into her blazer's pocket, which bulged with something that looked like a small box.

 _Probably her hearing aid,_ Angela thought idly. But she _did_ find it odd. She'd never noticed Fareeha carrying around her hearing aid in her pocket. Usually, her hair hid her ears enough to not make her self conscious, but Angela could tell she wasn't wearing it by the way she tilted her head and looked at Angela's lips when Angela spoke.

Angela knew that Fareeha didn't wear them most times at home unless they were watching movies, but when they were out, Fareeha usually wanted to be tuned into everything just in case. _Old habits die hard, I guess. But not using them now seems like a bit of a departure..._

The two walked hand in hand to Schlossplatz and poked around at the various stalls, chatting with vendors and occasionally bumping into people.

Fareeha rubbed the back of her neck and squeezed Angela's hand. "I guess there isn't as much going on here as I thought there would be."

Angela rolled a shoulder. "You never know when a festival is going to be big or small here. It's been like that my whole life." Angela looked up at the grey sky. "I doubt the snow is doing the festival any favors."

Fareeha nodded sourly. "I thought it was going to be clear today."

Angela smiled up at her big, beautiful girlfriend. "It's always bright and warm with you, darling."

Fareeha pulled the two of them into an empty stall space and looked down at Angela gravely. "Angela…"

Angela raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"

Fareeha's pause was long, and her hands were fidgety. "That's gay."

Angela couldn't help but laugh and feel like they were much younger, having fun and not worrying about anything. Angela felt… younger than she had in a very long time. She stood on her toes and pulled Fareeha down by her scarf, kissing the chapped lips of her lover and best friend.

Fareeha smiled like a little kid. There was no worry in that small moment. No fear. No insecurity.

Just peace.

And hope.

They abandoned the petering out festival to crawl the bustling MarktHalle and peruse the goods whereupon Angela bought herself entirely too many sweets. Fareeha prevented her from buying three kilos of Italian sausage, saying with a smile that they couldn't refrigerate and transport the food, but Angela _wanted_ it so badly. Instead of buying too much sausage to practically carry, she bought a box of fresh Turkish candies and chocolate covered plums.

Fareeha paused at a particularly aromatic booth, proclaiming to be part of the Middle Eastern section of the market, and spoke cheerfully to the men and women behind the counter in her native tongue. Angela could only catch snippets, not understanding much other than basic phrases - "Do you have…" "What is…" "Where did _ come from?" and most importantly, "How much does this cost?" She could also catch some pleasantries, and as a result of Fareeha's good humor, the owners gave the two fresh coffee in medium sized paper cups with little cardboard sleeves. Out of courtesy, Fareeha ended up purchasing some dried herbs, coffee beans, and special teas for a discount price.

They spent a good few hours there and stopped at one of the ready food stalls to have some finger food. Fareeha ended up with something that looked like falafel and smelled like heaven, and Angela got herself some babaganoush from the same vendor as Fareeha. She'd only had babaganoush in her early years at Overwatch, but something about this, she knew despite the long time between then and now, tasted just as good, probably better.

They decided, after a while, to go back to the hotel to rest. Angela thought that she could even take time to nap.

Holding their bags of things and waiting on the bus, Angela noticed Fareeha beginning to get fidgety again.

"Fareeha Amari, what's bothering you?"

Fareeha glanced over at Angela. "Nothing. Uh. Did I tell you we have dinner reservations?"

Angela blinked. "No?" She paused then cried, "I don't have a dress for that!"

Despair threatened to clutch her heart again and drag her down back into that feeling of aged decrepitness she'd been feeling.

Fareeha snorted. "Yeah, I know. That's why I got you one."

The dark cloud rolled back from Angela's heart in the light of Fareeha's smile.

 _Fareeha Amari, what do you have planned?_

Some part of Angela thought she knew.

And then that small part of Angela became nervous.

* * *

Angela poked the small silver earrings into her mostly closed earholes with a hiss.

Fareeha walked by and placed a hand on Angela's waist, kissing her exposed neck. "I'm going to take your hair down when we get back here tonight."

Angela shivered and looked in the mirror at the tall, muscular woman in a sleek black suit. Fareeha… could say really vague things really well when she wanted to. She could say really explicit things when she wanted to. And sometimes, the thrill of the vague was as delightful as the explicit. Angela pushed back against Fareeha's body and smiled at the blush on the tall Egyptian's face. A deep satisfaction rolled over Angela that painted her smile into something impish, hidden in the red painted on her lips. Fareeha could dish it, but most times, she couldn't take it without getting flustered beyond words. To Angela's surprise, Fareeha pulled her closer by the hips and spun her around, catching Angela's face in her hands and catching a kiss on Angela's lips.

Angela wasn't sure if she wanted to go to dinner or eat in, at that point.

Fareeha pulled back and smiled, making Angela's head go dizzy and lightheaded despite the few hours' rest they'd managed to get. They'd changed into their pajamas, made tea, snacked on some chocolate covered plums, and watched an action flick, occasionally pausing to enjoy one another's company in the form of laughing and chatting about movie specifics. Fareeha had a penchant for noting costume design and functionality, and Angela pointed out all the ridiculous immediate deaths from nonlethal bullet wounds. She'd snorted laughing more than once.

The two shared a shower but only managed to get flustered before needing to get dressed, and Angela was _really feeling it_. But, to reassure Fareeha that she was interested in the date more than the after-date, she tried her best to stuff her feelings down and tried her damnedest not to think about the certain things in Fareeha's suitcase that would make tonight even more… buzzing.

The two managed to leave the hotel with minimal distraction and walk the two blocks from the hotel to the restaurant - a newer construction intermixed with the old just past the Oberer Schlossgarten, which looked exactly the same as it had nearly twenty years ago, save for a new statue or three. The outside of the building was nothing but glass and steel, looking more like a nightclub to Angela than a restaurant, but she was pleasantly surprised to find the low lighting and lush furnishings of an upscale restaurant like near the Marktplatz. Quiet jazz music unobtrusively filled the air and made Angela want a glass of wine in her free hand. Fareeha's arm burned warm even through her suit, and Angela couldn't help but wonder if her heating units were acting up, or worse - about to go out.

Secretly, Angela had been worried about their attire, which she remembered as Fareeha's warm hand brushed innocently against her exposed thigh. The two of them couldn't have been missed anywhere normal, but this particular restaurant's inhabitants all looked about on par with the two of them and their attire. Fareeha sighed a breath of what could have only been relief as she saw others in the restaurant. The two approached the podium where a host, dressed in no less than a full tuxedo, greeted them and asked for their reservation name.

Fareeha sighed, looking a little embarrassed. "Um. Reinhardt Wilhelm. And I'm… supposed to tell you… to… dunk the donut in the milk? He said you'd know what that meant."

The host's eyes brightened. "Yes, of course," he replied in heavily accented English. "Right this way, please. It's always an honor to have a friend of Herr Wilhelm here."

Fareeha smiled sheepishly. "Thank you."

Angela curiously gazed at Fareeha and the waiter but didn't make too big of a fuss. Really, she just wanted to sit down. She wasn't used to wearing shoes with heels very much anymore unless they were part of Valkyrie, and those heels were nearly orthopedic. They didn't really count.

Once they were fully inside and out of the foyer, the host led them down a hallway and up an elevator to which Angela cocked her head. Usually places like this charged an extra fee to have anything above the main level, and from the main level, each one grew more expensive. They went up five levels to the top and over to the side where the glass showed a sprawl of gardens, parks, and historical buildings.

Once the host was gone, Angela leaned across the table to whisper at Fareeha. "How much is this going to _cost_?"

Fareeha was looking at Angela's lips and took a second to respond. "Hey, don't look at me. Rein set me up with this gig. Mama made sure we had shoes and casual clothes. Hana paid for and ordered the clothes and sent them to our room." She blushed. "Jack sent us plenty of… things. Zenyatta and Genji…" She frowned, placing her napkin in her lap. "I think they just regifted us some candles?"

Angela was caught off guard by her own surprised laugh. The two other couples on this floor (it was a very small, very cozy, very exclusive floor with its own fireplace and bar) shot angry glances over at Angela and Fareeha.

Fareeha stuck her tongue out at them, which got scoffs and righteous indignation and a good hearty laugh from Angela.

Fareeha looked back smiling brilliantly at Angela and her metal beads clicked in her hair. Her wadjet looked so soft in this light even though it was exaggerated by Fareeha's eyeliner and makeup. Fareeha looked softer here. She looked less like a hardened, wary soldier and more like the kid Angela had known when she, too, was a child. There was mischievousness in her smile and a light grace in her movement that seemed so much less regimented than at home.

A waiter came and filled their glasses with cold water and, much to Angela's pleasure, delightful red wine. Fareeha excused herself to the lavatory, and Angela watched her go… Her and her lithe beauty of a muscular, imperfect model.

Angela looked out the glass wall and down at the park not too far away, watching the glittering lights shine off the rippling waters and make the snow glow as if internally illuminated. The night had cleared up from the day, the clouds departing for the most part, and the stars shone brightly in the sky with a brilliant three-quarter moon. Soothing jazz music drifted out into the room, and even though Angela couldn't see the band, she knew it was live from the way the breaths sounded and the snare frame clicked against sticks.

When she looked up, Fareeha was standing there, looking out over the same landscape, and Angela briefly wondered what she was thinking.

Fareeha took her seat and scooted forward. "I should be able to hear you better now," she said with a smile.

Angela smiled back, wine glass in hand, and allowed her shoulders to round instead of keeping her back so rigidly straight. Angela's bare skin of her back brushed against the fabric of the seat. Personally, she never would have picked the dress, simply because of how impractically revealing it was, but she guessed that Hana wanted Angela to have a good time. Her back was mostly exposed, showing her full spinal implant and most of her tattoo. Her dress also had a modest split up the side, but she'd found herself unable to pick too many nits about it.

Fareeha's dark blue suit with black lapels looked much more understated than Angela's dress, even though she was _sure_ that if Hana had bought the thing, it was invariably couture and incredibly expensive.

They idly perused the menu, picking out food that didn't _bother_ to have the prices listed next to them, which made Angela increasingly nervous.

"Helo, don't worry about the money. Reinhardt said it's our… anniversary present."

Angela gawked. "That's today."

Fareeha rolled her eyes playfully. "You forgot?"

Angela shook her head too vigorously. "N _o_ ….."

Fareeha plucked Angela's hand off her menu and kissed her fingers tenderly. "Get whatever you want."

Angela ended up ordering a duck confit with lentils and duck fat roasted potatoes, and Fareeha ended up with a cassoulet to combat them all.

Fareeha laughed a little when they brought out their main dishes, saying, "My mother would die if she saw me eating _French_ food."

Angela laughed at that. "Isn't your dad Canadian?"

Fareeha nodded. "Yeah, but that doesn't mean he knows how to cook." She paused. "And not all Canadians associate with Quebecers, okay?"

"Isn't your dad from Quebec?"

Fareeha frowned and grumbled, "The area, I guess."

But her frown broke into a smile.

The two ate their fill, Angela not quite finishing hers and Fareeha eating _all_ of hers, and the waiter brought out two serving ramekins of gelatinous-looking wiggly stuff with lumps dusted with brown powder. Angela glanced up at Fareeha, who shrugged a took a small bite.

"Rice pudding." She ate another bite. "And really good, too."

Angela took a bite for herself and was a little surprised that it was served cold. She'd only had rice pudding when it was hot, but then again, with the way this tasted, sweet and filling with aromatics but still not too sweet, she thought she might have been misled into eating rice porridge in her younger years.

The waiter, again, returned with two flutes of champagne before the two horfed down the whole dessert, placing each glass about two centimeters from each ramekin. Angela thanked the waiter as he departed and went back to putting the spoon in her mouth to wash down a too-big bite with the champagne. The champagne was a _perfect_ compliment to the lightly sweet dessert, but...

She caught Fareeha's horrified eyes.

And then something clinked against her tooth.

She almost spit all the champagne back into the flute but managed to retain _some_ of her dignity. She closed her lips around the object against her teeth. Luckily, she hadn't swallowed it.

With hands that were a little shaky, Angela put down the champagne flute and her spoon before reaching up to the thin object she held in her mouth. Her fingers found it and began to tremble a little more as they looped around a band, brushing up against what felt like prongs as they snagged her fingernail. She pulled the small thing free.

It was exactly what Angela thought it was.

A ring.

She looked up from her shaking hands and found Fareeha kneeling beside her, looking up at her with those great, warm eyes. Her brain had gone to white noise, and her heart beat loudly in her head. She'd told Fareeha no so many times that-

"Angela, I know you don't…" Fareeha looked away. "I know you've said no before, and it won't hurt me if you say no now… I just…" She looked back up, and Angela saw tears in those eyes. Maybe Fareeha didn't even know they were there yet, but they were. "Angela, hayati, I _love_ you, and I want you to know that you never have to feel alone. You never have to _be_ alone. He won't _ever_ have you again, not if I can help it. I want you to know that I'm with you always. I am here with you as you are with me." She paused, closing her eyes and taking a shaky breath. "Angela Ziegler, will you marry me?"

Angela, still holding the ring numbly in her left hand, took Fareeha's. Her brain rejected this proposal, but the rest of her wanted to embrace Fareeha and take her home. Or the hotel. Whatever was closest. She wanted to cry and she wanted to laugh and kiss and scream. Her mouth started moving before her brain could figure out what it was saying, and she felt too disconnected from the scene to do anything to stop herself, but then again she didn't know if she wanted to.

"Fareeha," Angela felt herself saying. She watched herself push the ring into Fareeha's metal hand and saw the despairing sadness creep into those lovely brown eyes of her lover. Angela felt herself put her left hand out and into Fareeha's other hand. "Promise me that we'll be safe."

Fareeha looked up with gleaming, tear-filled eyes, and two tears jumped from her eyes and landed on her cheeks as she blinked. She nodded, opened her mouth, and closed it again. Her beads clicked quietly and nearly in time with the jazz band.

Angela looked down at Fareeha, one part of herself screaming at how foolish she was being, but the other part of her drowned it out. _What changed for me to even consider saying yes?_ She still felt too far from her body as Fareeha slipped the simple silver band around Angela's ring finger. Her shoulders drooped, and she squeezed Angela's hand too hard for comfort. Her head lowered and lowered until it rested on Angela's exposed knee, and something warm and wet dripped on her leg. Like a rubber band snapping back, Angela gasped, feeling a little too much at once, and her own tears fell.

 _I_ _ **love**_ _her… That's what it is…_

"Fareeha Amari," she whispered shakily, trying to preserve her makeup by looking up.

Fareeha looked up, her makeup still perfect though her face was tear stained.

Angela kept her voice quiet, but it still broke. "Take me back to the hotel."

Fareeha laughed and more tears fell, but Angela felt her heart swell.


	41. Miss Atomic Bomb

Junkertown wasn't exactly what Lena expected, but then again, she wasn't sure what she expected. She half expected a town built out of ramshackle silos and lean-to's with its people using license plates for armor. She wasn't too terribly far off, but she was also _incredibly_ far off. The first thing that Lena noticed were the sheer droves of people who looked not quite dirty, but very sooty and covered in motor oil, as if in some strange fashion statement. Some wore half-masks of what looked like soot on their faces, making their eyes stand out starkly against the darkness. Almost no one had all of their limbs and instead had limbs salvaged from scrap. The buildings leaned and swayed, looking more like melting sculptures in the sun than actual buildings.

She looked down at the town, standing on the upper cusp of the first ridge, and saw that the stairs down into the town were nothing more than wooden slats. Only one rickety looking elevator went from the top where she stood to the bottom, but nearly all of the places looked wheelchair accessible, if your wheels had chains for gripping instead of actual wheels. The buildings differed greatly as the town spiraled downward to a central point, and Lena almost gasped from the vertigo as she realized she was standing on the edge of an _impact_ _crater_.

She reeled backward for Junkrat to catch her arm. "A little disorientin', yeah?"

Lena nodded and doubled over, trying to get the vertigo to subside.

Junkrat held her arm steady with a firm, bony hand until she stopped swaying. "I guess y' don't think about it after y' go on about it for a while." He straightened up a little from his usual stoop and clapped Lena on the arm as she managed to stand on her own without feeling green. "Grew up in this place, I did! Grew up right here in Junkertown." He pointed to a small building off the fourth tier. "That's where me n' Roadie rented our place before we went out on our own!"

Lena frowned at the dirty boy beside her. "What?"

Junkrat flapped his flesh and and his metal arm creaked at a similar movement. "Everybody always gets it wrong. I didn't find _him_! He found _me!_ Found me in the desert and brought be on back, he did. He did, he did. Barely had anythin' to eat for days. Only the water in m' canteens. Brought me back here and got me to draw up a contract!"

Roadhog shifted, his massive feet puffing up dust from an otherwise hardpan bit of red earth. " **the contract**."

Lena looked up at the big guy and could almost imagine him rolling his eyes underneath his mask. She almost laughed, but it made her feel queasy again. There was some sarcasm in his voice, but he kept his tone so even that Lena couldn't be sure.

"Uh, I gotta ask, mates. What're we doin' here?"

Roadhog started down one of the boards which creaked and groaned uncomfortably under his weight. Junkrat motioned for Lena to follow.

"Well… We're just gonna rest up a bit before we get going again! Gas up. Eat up. Drink up. Besides! I'm out of milk tea!"

Lena blinked but followed Roadhog, letting Junkrat follow behind. _Milk tea?_

* * *

The inn was a ramshackle little place on the outside with decent furnishings and fully segmented rooms with doors on the inside, and again, Lena didn't know what she expected. Her door, however, was made from what looked like welded side paneling from various cars and trucks. The doorknob itself was made from one large gear attached to a lock and latch mechanism. Lena had cash on her and was ready to get herself a room of her own, but the innkeeper, a jolly looking man with a proportionally large prosthetic arm welcomed the boys as if they were his own prodigal sons. He gave them a room and Lena her own at no cost, and Lena was fairly grateful that these boys she'd claimed were moderately well-known in any respect. Free things were always more than nice, in Lena's book.

She hadn't had to worry about money in a very long time, but she was always more than a little conscious about it.

She'd taken to the room, sprucing it up a bit, opening the windows to get some light in instead of letting the dusty panes cloud up the natural light, and went to shower to find it a little less than updated. It had taken her a few minutes standing there stark naked to figure out how to use the damn shower like it always did with a new one, but once she managed it, she took the longest, coolest shower she'd probably ever taken. She lathered her body with her hoarded fancy soap at _least_ three times, and scrubbed at her scalp with the shampoo she'd brought with her. She emerged from the shower feeling like she'd washed off layers upon layers of dirt and marvelled at how exposed she felt without her protective grime. She dressed quickly in something less conspicuous than her accelerator and bodysuit - torn jeans and a simple white tanktop with her jewellry she wore in place of her chronal harness.

She walked down the short hall to the boys' room and knocked, feeling a little self conscious about her dripping hair she'd slicked back. Her hair was getting too long to keep over her face and she desperately needed a haircut but… Fareeha had been the one to cut her hair back at home. Mako answered the door, making Lena inch back a bit. She wasn't _afraid_ of the big guy. She was just often caught off guard by how massive he was when she'd spent some time alone and come back.

"Oi, big boy, where's the other one?"

Roadhog stepped out of the room and closed it incredibly gently behind him. Lena noticed the big man's nails were painted a shiny new black. " **sleeping**."

Lena nodded. "Probably needs it. Doesn't sleep enough, does he?"

Roadhog simply shook his head and stared down at Lena as if silently asking what she wanted.

"Wanna come get a drink with me?" She smiled up at him, figuring that it would be best to try to be kind to the largest man-beast she'd ever seen.

Roadhog, to Lena's surprise, laughed and put a big meaty hand on her shoulder. " **you buy.** "

Lena swallowed and nodded fervently, too nervous to disagree.

Mako led Lena down the darkening streets, the sun glinting and burning red off of all of these metal buildings and hardpan, red earth. The cool of night was beginning to roll over the town's crater, a gentle breeze circling about but not sandblasting anyone. People drifted, mostly in small groups, casting furtive glances at this mountainous man and his tiny gay companion.

He led her down to the bottom tier, the closest to a burned out, flat disk of shiny black glass radiating outward, blue flecks glowing inside the glass like eternal fireflies glowing in amber. She looked at it, finding the blue so incredibly similar to the light of her own chronal accelerator, and felt a sense of peace.

" **omnium core** ," Roadhog said quietly, noting Lena's curiosity.

Lena looked up, feeling her eyebrows go nearly to her hairline. She blinked. "You mean…"

Roadhog just nodded and approached the door of the bar before pushing it open to let terrible music drift out into the dying light of day. He gestured toward the doorway and Lena didn't object any more than she ever had with Mako. Going inside made Lena feel nauseated again from the sagging ceiling and tilting walls. Everything in this place made Lena feel like she was walking around in some cruel funhouse at a very cheap carnival. She found a table in a corner that she thought might make her feel safer if she didn't look too hard at the walls and beams and supports made of plywood, red steel, and strange coils. Roadhog prevented her from dashing into the corner like a frightened mouse and steered her toward the bar, which looked to be the only level thing in this whole place.

The chair beneath him groaned in protest, but Mako didn't seem to pay the bowing legs any mind. Lena, on the other hand, felt sorry for the barstool.

The bartender, noting two new patrons in the mirror where she worked so fastidiously, turned with a wide smile that made her blue eyes sparkle. "Hey, there, welcome to The Brass Lantern. What can I get for you?"

Her accent was a strange mix of things that sounded incredibly flat but lilting. Lena cocked her head, studying the woman's face and thinking it looked too familiar to be coincidence. Roadhog grumbled his order without much ceremony or pleasantry, and Lena tried to fill in for his usual curtness.

"Uh, yeah, uh. Do you folks have just... Well… I guess you don't have fish here. Middle of the desert and all..." _Smooth move, Lena._

The bartender just laughed. "No, we don't really have any fish around here unless you want to shave a few years off your life. They're all pretty irradiated around these parts." She flipped her lovely red hair over her shoulder and propped up on the bar's counter. "You aren't from here, are you?"

Lena shook her head.

"It's not just your accent. You look kinda familiar…" The woman pursed her lips, a lovely pink even in the low light of incandescent bulbs hanging naked from the ceiling. "Food first, though."

Lena laughed but didn't trust herself to speak too much. "Yeah, uh. What do _you_ think?"

The woman turned, mixed two drinks and sent them off, and turned back around. "Well, we have a mean pepper steak here. Can't complain about the cheesy bread either. My personal favorite is the personal meat pie with chips."

"Chips or crisps?"

The woman rolled her eyes and winked. "Oh, you _foreigner_."

Lena couldn't help but smile and caught Mako shaking his head beside her.

"I'll have what you're having then, love."

The woman smiled and left her post, presumably to take the orders off to the back kitchen, and Mako turned to Lena, staring down at her through his obscuring mask. Lena laughed nervously.

"What's that look for, mate?"

Roadhog went back to looking at his glass of water, the condensation rolling down the side like the sweat down Lena's back. " **we need to talk, tracer** ," he said simply. The casual coolness in his voice as he said her codename made her blood run cold.

"You knew it was me the whole time, then?"

He just looked at her. " **you need a better codename than tracy**."

Lena rolled her eyes and propped her chin on one hand, elbow resting on the bar. She'd heard _that_ before. And from a _child_.

"Does Jameson know?"

Mako shook his head. " **about jameson**..." Unfamiliar hesitation colored his words.

"What is it?"

Mako sighed and reached his hamhock hands to his mask, loosening the straps and pulling down the only thing Lena had known of his face for several weeks. Underneath was something grizzly. He looked like he'd gotten in a fight with a shredder and somehow survived. " **i was one of the ones who helped blow the core. we didn't know what it would do to the land or the air or the people or the animals. we didn't** _ **know**_ **. we thought it would shut down the facility and the rogue omnics, but that isn't what happened.** " The big man grimaced and picked up his cup with a pinky extended, sipping delicately at the water. " **i got as far away from the damn thing as i could, but it still couldn't save most of my face. i looked back, lena.** "

Lena blinked. He knew her _name_. But more importantly than that, he was talking more than Lena even thought he was _capable_. She listened with rapt attention and in silence.

" **people here know what i look like because i helped make this a new home to so many i'd disenfranchised. the radiation is gone, now, but it wasn't when we started building. i still ended up hurting so many people. most of my friends were dead from the blast. i only barely survived.** " He sighed and took another sip, keeping his eyes averted from Lena's face. " **i went out in the wasteland after that and found that so many things had changed almost overnight. animals had gotten bigger like some fuckin' cartoon. the sky was dark. water pools evaporated. homes had been obliterated by the concussive blast.** " He shrugged, his massive body heaving. " **i'd changed too, you know. i got bigger. a lot bigger. the radiation wasn't what killed people, though. it was the shrapnel and the concussive blast. that...** _ **fucking**_ **blast…** "

Lena waited, but Mako fell silent for a time, long enough for the sweet freckled bartender to come back with their food, but Lena wasn't feeling very hungry at the moment. The kindly bartender went and busied herself at the other end of the counter.

"What does this have to do with Jameson?"

Mako sighed. " **when i went out, it'd been days. almost a week. i wandered and wandered, trying to find survivors to take them to this place, and i found a kid starving, wounded, and dying of dehydration. he had to have been only about fourteen. his arm had been blasted clean off and so was his leg from the knee down. he didn't have to tell me for me to know that this had been my fault. i put him in my car and drove him back here. we'd only started building lean-to's and tents around this place. we thought it might be safer here with all the scrap around us to make a depressed fort to keep all the other disasters of the wasteland away from us. when i came back, there were at least twenty more people here, and one of them was a doctor. think the doc's still here. i kept asking the kid where his parents were, but he couldn't remember. he couldn't remember much other than a blast and waking up bleeding.** "

Lena shifted to look full on at Mako, even though his face made her stomach twist. It was like Genji's, but Genji still had human parts left to him unmarred by his brother. Mako, though… Mako was nothing but puffy, white, ropey scars that nearly closed his eyes. He almost had no nose to speak of. It was really no wonder he wore a mask to hide his face.

" **i didn't know what to do with this** _ **kid**_ **, but i couldn't leave him either. i was the only one he knew anymore besides the doc and some of the people here. i took him back to my little place, drew up a contract, and handed it to him. he couldn't really read it, i don't think, but i don't really know why. might have been the radiation. might have been something from before. i let him draw up his own contract, but he'd gotten the shakes from the radiation.** " The large man did what Lena thought might have been a smile. It was grizzly. " **found him one of those fuck off big crayons to help with the motor control, and he went to work. i took it from him and it was just scribbles, but he seemed pretty pleased with himself, so i drew a line and told him to write his name. kid couldn't remember his name from before the blast so i called him my junk rat. he called himself junkrat after that. later, he remembered his name - jameson fawkes - but junkrat felt more natural, he said. he insisted that i write it for him since i was his lackey, and i couldn't help but agree. needless to say, i'm the one that takes care of the business end.** "

Lena just sat, letting her food get cold, trying to take in all of this information from such an unlikely source. Only one logical question came to her mind. "Why are you telling me this?"

Mako, the man under the mask, looked at Lena with his dark, beady eyes that glinted so ominously in the otherwise homey ambiance of The Brass Lantern. " **because i'm the business end. if he gets hurt, lena oxton, i will** _ **end**_ **you.** "

Lena swallowed, and the large beast of a man clapped her on the shoulder. " **eat.** "

She did as she was told but was not at all enthusiastic about eating any more than she would have been enthusiastic to take a bullet in the leg. As the thought passed through her mind, she could feel the old, familiar ache radiating in her left leg. That reminded her of why she was here…

"Listen, Mako, I know you just went and were all big n' scary n' whatnot, but I have a proposition for you. I'd like to put you two on contract, if that's what it takes." She waved a crisp at him judgmentally.

The big man took a bite of his burger that would have choked and killed a normal sized man and laughed, mouth still full. Lena winced as she saw the mangled lettuce and meat in his mouth. " **go ahead. no contracts among friends.** "

 _Friends_ … She smiled but didn't know why the word brought her so much comfort. Maybe it let her know she wasn't alone out in this wasteland. Maybe it let her know that even in a foreign hell that she still had people that thought of her closely. Maybe it just made her less nervous after that long, scary talk.

"Do you know why I'm going to Alice Springs?"

The large man shook his head.

"I'm going to go hit a Talon base," She said matter-of-factly. "I want their intel, but I'm sure they have plenty of explosives there too. New weapons, new armor, new prosthetics." She paused. "Maybe not prosthetics, since they don't think they're ' _clean.'_ "

Mako's eyes glittered and he swallowed, his large belly jiggling like a great mass of jello. Very Santa-like… if Santa were a giant Australian man with a mangled face and bloodlust. " **i'm out of the killing business ever since i took jameson in**."

Lena rolled her eyes. "We won't have to kill…" She frowned and thought about that for a second. "Okay, _you two_ won't have to kill. I don't give a shit about taking out Talon agents. They've taken my whole life from me, and I'm out for revenge."

" **thought you said intelligence.** "

"I can be out for two things," Lena nearly shouted back. She could feel heated indignation swirling and bubbling within her.

Mako laughed again, and he looked much less frightening than he had when staring down at her in challenge. He horfed down the last bites of his burger and clapped Lena on the shoulder before replacing his mask and leaving without a word.

Her stomach twisted as she watched him leave. She still wasn't very hungry.

The bartender saddled up next to Lena a few minutes after Mako's departure. "That seemed intense."

Lena laughed and picked at another crisp. "Yeah, you could say that." Unease lanced her stomach more powerfully than any hunger pain. She replaced the crisp in almost exactly the same spot and dug into her meat pie gingerly. She took a bite and warmth spread through her as spices coated her palate. "Holy shit. That's good."

The bartender laughed. "Glad you like it. It's m' ma's recipe and she got it from m' da."

Lena frowned. "Where are _you_ from?" Lena bought she already knew.

Sweet pink lips parted in a genuine smile. "I'm from everywhere. My dad was an engineer for a big place before he lost his job, but he was never really there for me and m' ma." She shrugged. "I've been all over for him, trying to keep up with him, but it doesn't matter."

Taking another bite of that delectable pie, Lena nodded and began feeling even more uncomfortable. "Yeah, I can't say I don't understand at least a little bit."

The pretty girl beamed again, her former disdain vanishing like strong sunlight fading clouds into blue sky. "What's your name? I don't think I caught it."

Lena blushed. "Uh, how's about you tell me _your_ name first. We'll see if it jogs any memories."

The lovely lady wrinkled her nose. "You're funny. I like that. My name's-" Lena already knew before she said it, but there was still a cloud of denial smothering her capacity to comprehend what she was about to hear. A feeling much like cold water thrown on an overheated body splashed over Lena. Her denial couldn't strain much more. "Emily Lindholm."

Her denial broke upon the jagged rocks of truth.

Lena, who had so unwisely taken a sip of her drink, nearly spit it back out. " _fuCK_ "

Emily Lindholm, a figure from Lena's past nearly forgotten, laughed. "Yeah. You probably know the name from the old Overwatch organization before it got disbanded. Lindholms are everywhere, and anymore, I think they're mostly related to him. Can't keep his dick in his pants ever."

Lena put up her hands, waving about frantically and making groans of protest. She did _not_ want to think about Torbjorn's genitals. She covered her eyes as if her mind would be blind to the image. It wasn't. "I do _not_ want to think about Torbs dick. And yeah, you know me."

Emily laughed her pleasant laugh, bringing back memories that were equally as pleasant - picnics in the park not too far from the Thames, shopping as young teens with arms intertwined, kisses long forgotten in corridors of Overwatch Headquarters, gone with the ashes of the organization…

Emily had been a part of Overwatch support, a role in which she worked with marketing and image production. She also helped with Overwatch related social media and checked in with everyone, but she always went home whenever she needed to. She didn't spend unnecessary time at work, unlike Lena who didn't have a home at all besides the one she made at the Headquarters. They'd grown apart, and Lena had all but forgotten their stolen kisses and tender looks. Emily had been Lena's first crush that she'd recognized as an actual crush. As far as Lena was concerned, Emily had been Lena's first _girlfriend_.

Emily still had a guarded but intrigued look in her eyes. "But _where_ do I know you from? You look like..."

Lena smiled down at her food, remembering simpler times and wishing for that simplicity back in her life. Part of her even resented her journey, but she couldn't ever resent her cause. She could see Emily's eyes widen and her mouth nearly unhinge. Her slender, freckled fingers went to her cover her gaping mouth in realization.

"When you turned seventeen, we had a party - some of the Overwatch gang, but I was the only one your age then. After your party, we went to the roof of HQ and watched the sunset." Lena plucked up a salty, completely cold crisp and inspected its ridges. "I asked if you wanted to be my girlfriend, then, but you didn't really answer."

Lena looked up from her chip inspection, and she could feel her face burning like a thousand suns as she smiled at the startled and stunned young woman beside her.

Emily snapped out of her paralysis, breaking the stone that had encased her in a fearsome shock. "I _answered_ , but not with _words_ ," She protested. "Christ, Lena, is it really _you_?"

"In the flesh, love." Lena ran a hand through her hair, which was slightly tangled and still very damp.

Emily reached out to touch Lena, her lovely, slender fingers catching Lena's eye, but Lena shied away from her - from touch. She hadn't touched anyone closely since Amélie all that time ago in Florence. Emily's touch… it was too familiar for the stranger sitting so close to her, and yet, deep, searing longing plagued Lena's very bones. It had been so long since someone even gave her a hug. Pats on the back and punches in the shoulder didn't even feel remotely the same as something as intimate as a tender touch passed between two former lovers.

Against her better judgment, Lena reached out to Emily, who'd recoiled instinctively, and took her hand. She'd always been so empathetic…

"It's been a while."

Emily smiled, looking at their hands held gently and tentatively. "Too long. What happened to us, Lena? You look so..."

"Different?"

Emily cocked her head. "Enough for me not to recognize you right away." She shook her head and asked again, "What _happened_?"

Lena sighed, looking down at the scarred hand holding onto the pale, freckled one. "Time… Time got away from us…"

The days Lena and the Junkers spent in Junkertown were conflicting for Lena. On one hand, she'd transferred her few possessions out of the inn where Junkrat and Roadhog stayed and moved, temporarily, into Emily's home on the uppermost tier of the crater. She didn't stay long, though. They, as a group, didn't stay long. In those few days, Lena saw less of the Junkers than she had in all their time together, even though she often stayed behind on their cartoonish antics and epic gallavants.

The first night at Emily's place, the two had stayed up late into the night, Emily letting Lena borrow her pajamas and giving her some space to get clean and bum some new clothes off Emily, not to mention do laundry on the few clothes she had. After Lena felt cleaner than she had in weeks and she nestled down in clean, unfamiliar clothes, the two ladies sat down on Emily's homey, worn couch with some beers.

"Y' don't have any cigs, do you?"

Emily shook her head. "Don't smoke."

"Don't start," Lena grumbled, feeling a little put out. It'd been too long, and she'd been too stressed. She took a rather large glug from her cold, sweaty beer can. The air conditioning on her neck felt unfamiliar and chilled her to the core, but she didn't mind. She'd gotten so used to the heat and a lack of circulating air, except what she could get in the open top car. "I wish I hadn't."

Emily kicked her feet up onto her coffee table. "Thought about quitting?"

Lena smiled. "You know, I used to only smoke when I drank."

"But you always drank," chided Emily lightly with a fond smile.

Lena smiled a shit eating grin and thought of Hana. That was something she would have said. Her smile fell a little. She needed to call home. "Anyway," she said to distract herself. "How does Emily Lindholm, media extraordinaire, end up a bartender in Hellhole, Australia?"

Emily sighed and her shining freckled face fell from its warm, cinnamon smile. "I went where the job was."

Lena could understand, unfortunately. "Doesn't explain why you're bartending, though."

Emily frowned, but her guard, Lena saw, had fallen away completely. Her eyes were as warm as they had been before the fall, but there was a hardness in those eyes that Lena knew was in her own. In Hana's. In Angela's. In Jack's. In all of theirs. Eyes that had seen death and destruction. But… Emily hadn't caused it. Emily hadn't killed.

"I came out here because I thought there was a base that I could exploit, but when Australia declared themselves a neutral continent on the Overwatch Ban, I couldn't do anything that could get a foothold back for us." Lena saw Emily's teeth catch her lip as she realized her words. "For Overwatch, I mean. Then, I was out here in the desert with nothing and no one. M' ma died a few months after the HQ. Torb… he's not much of a father."

Lena rolled her eyes. "He's really not from what I've gathered."

Emily's smile was hard and cold like the unfamiliar air on Lena's neck. "He doesn't even know who I am, I guarantee."

Lena felt bad for bringing any of it up.

"I drifted out here with some refugees and ended up giving some of my technical know-how in exchange for a place to go and work part time." She sighed and placed her empty beer can on the coffee table. "Want another?"

Lena swished the last swallow of her tepid beer around in the bottom of the can. "Sure. I get kinda silly after one."

Emily smiled. "You've always been silly, Lena Elizabeth Oxton. That accident didn't do anything. You haven't changed a bit. I can't believe that all of you've managed to get so far and not let the terrible things stop you."

The terrible things, Lena knew, did stop the Overwatch crew. That's why they were in stuck in a horrible holding pattern that never seemed to end, and Lena's actions had only thrown them into self-destruct mode. Lena couldn't laugh. Lena couldn't smile. A heaviness on her chest pressed enough to crush her under its frigid, unforgiving, unseen mass. It was an easily forgotten thing that crashed so messily and abruptly upon her that she sucked in a panicked breath and clung to her chest with a clawed hand. Her nails seemed to cut through the shirt and rip at her flesh. The weight would not lift.

"Lena?"

The question sounded distant to Lena's ears, which seemed stuffed with cotton and throbbing heartbeat. Emily's voice was so far… The only thing close was encroaching darkness at the corners of her vision and the too loud heartbeat in her head.

"Lena?" A panicked voice asked, and a warm, soft hand touched her all but forgotten, exposed leg in shaking askance. The warmth beat away the cold and the darkness, ebbing some of the terror. Lena, on her own, remembered that breathing was probably a thing she should be doing. "Hey, Lena, focus on my voice. It's gonna be alright. Hey, no, don't breathe like that. Listen to me breathe in for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Hold. Breathe out for…"

Emily continued this for a while before Lena managed to unclench her eyes and open them and let go of her chest. Emily still sat with her hand on Lena's leg, and once Lena managed to gain enough control over her shaking and jerky limbs, she grasped Emily's hand like a life raft. Like she had when they were young and holding on tightly in trying times.

What _had_ happened to them?

"I got sent to the south, that's what," Emily said quietly.

Lena hadn't realized she'd spoken instead of just thought to herself. Her shame overpowered the last tendril vestiges of panic as memories flooded her with potent sensory information - feeling her old, clunky phone slip through her fingers and onto her bed; her eyes leaked but did not pour like she anticipated, but her breaths were shaking not too unlike they were in the present.

 **[We can't do this anymore.]**

 **[I'm sorry, Lena.]**

Lena gritted her teeth and looked down at their hands, still holding one another like they'd held each other in the showers - on the roof - in Lena's bunk. She let go of Emily's hand with some hesitation slowing her movement to look less intentional. "It's the past, love. We're different now."

Emily smiled, but sadness tinged her eyes. "Too different and still all the same."

Lena fought a yawn, but it won over.

Emily squeezed Lena's hand one last time and left without a word to bring back a light blanket and pillows. She helped Lena pull out the bed and made sure that everything was set up just right, but when she turned to leave, that same encroaching darkness threatened to overtake Lena again at the thought of being so alone in an unfamiliar place.

"Em…"

Emily turned, her long, messy red hair flowing and swirling as she did so. "What is it, Lena?"

Lena looked away from those blazing green eyes. "I know it's stupid but…"

Silence.

"Do you think you could stay with me? At least until I fall asleep?" Lena felt like such a child asking for something so simple, but Emily didn't scoff or laugh. She nodded and climbed into the pullout beside Lena.

"I'll do you one better. Roll over."

Lena did as she was told and found strong, capable arms wrap around her in silent security. It had been a very, very long time…

* * *

Lena spent the next day feeling much less hostile toward Emily, much less suspicious and hurt at their less than optimal parting the last time they'd seen each other. Maybe it was the night they'd spent in each other's arms, not that they got up to any funny business.

 _Yet_ , Lena thought and immediately regretted as she watched Emily pour herself a cup of coffee. Emily had already gotten up and gotten dressed without Lena knowing.

"Where ya headed, love?" Lena rolled from the pullout bed with a groaning hip and a protesting left leg. It had been a while since _that_ ailed her.

Emily turned, a hair band between her lips and her hands piling her messy hair into a ponytail. Lena almost winced at how similar to Angela she looked and any spark of desire immediately vanished. Even if it _had_ been a long time, Lena couldn't bear the thought of comparing the two of them and liking it.

"'M goin' to work?" Emily mumbled around her hair band with a frown. How she managed all that, Lena didn't quite know.

"Thought you worked at the Lantern?"

Emily rolled her eyes in her sarcastic way and removed the piece of cloth-covered elastic from her mouth. "Yes, because working as a part time bartender pays all the bills."

Lena blinked and her fingers went to her chest, which did not have the bulky accelerator for her to tap on. She resorted to just drumming on her sternum like normal people do. "Junkertown has… bills."

The smile that Lena's eyes fell upon washed away the nervousness making her fingers dance in an offbeat rhythm and eased the shoulders creeping toward her ears. "It's more… paid protection. We all work together to ensure the sustainability of Junkertown since there are so many who can't work. Disabilities are pretty common, if you haven't noticed, and while they still look at me like an outsider, I'm more than happy to contribute. Besides, we salvage things, but that's usually not my bag. I take inventory and sort the junk so we can make different things. Everyone has something, right? Keep 'em boozed. Keep 'em organized. That's my place here."

Again, Emily's words weren't… disdainful, but they did have an air of defeat that Lena knew well. She heard herself sound the same way when she talked about her offense role when she would much rather be piloting. She heard herself sound the same way when she talked about times past. She heard herself sound the same way when she talked about Amélie.

"I can come help," Lena replied a little late. "Let me get dressed."

Emily's eyes narrowed. "How long will you guys be here?"

Lena shrugged, already throwing herself out of bed. "Few days, tops."

Lena heard Emily sigh but didn't see her face as she darted into the bathroom to change.

Lena was elbow deep in grease and grime and oil, covered in brake dust, metal shavings, and grit. She'd sorted approximately a hundred different junk parts into various piles around the warehouse, but she hadn't worn her accelerator so she couldn't blink around. She had to do _manual labor_. But… all the work considered, she didn't mind. She was seen as a volunteer force in the sweltering warehouse tucked away in the upper crust of the crater. It didn't make a lot of sense for scavengers to have to go all the way to the bottom of the crater to dump their scrap and pick up their pay.

Between the red dirt outside shining in the bright sun, the air rippling like water off the hot earth, and the dim, dingy, soot and motor oil stained inside, Lena found herself wishing to be anywhere green and clean. She missed those damn cow pastures near the New HQ.

As she worked, she started piecing together parts of her plan as methodically as she pieced each junk scrap into its proper pile. She used the structure to regiment her thoughts and plans, but Emily broke her concentration, pulling off her goggles and slicking back her sweaty hair.

"You're thinking about something really hard."

Lena looked up, trailing off a thought about how to infiltrate the Talon base in Alice Springs. "Oh, yeah. I guess."

Silence.

Emily slumped down onto her work station, sitting her elbows in a puddle of grease that had leaked out of something that looked like an extended magazine of a carbine rifle but had too many wiry hairs protruding to be any such thing. "Lena Oxton, you're like a ghost."

Lena's heart thudded and she eyed the willowy redhead. "When you turn into one, you usually keep some tendencies." Her words were bitter herbs in her mouth - crushed and dried and stuck in her teeth, coating her tongue and throat in a terrible film.

Emily looked down at her dirtied station. "Sorry."

Lena shrugged and tossed another hunk of miscellaneous metal into the _Hunks of Miscellaneous Metal_ box. "I shouldn't have been so pissy, it's fine."

Emily didn't smile though. "You just… float into my life and make me feel great for a few years and then disappear. You pop up in the most _unlikely_ place just to fuck up my head again, and I don't really know what to do with that. I don't even know why you're _here_. There's only one reason why you could be here. I let you stay last night, but I don't know if I can do it again. You're not… who you used to be. It's so clear that you aren't… you anymore…"

Lena dropped the box before she could catch herself, and a deep, burning hatred pushed her. She probably wouldn't have made the connection if she hadn't been thinking about him in the first place. "You think I'm like _him_ , then?"

Emily looked up, her face paler than usual to the point where her freckles were gone. "What? Who?"

"That dirty rat Reyes." Lena stared down at Emily, a rarity given their height difference.

"Reyes? Fuck, no, Lena. What the _hell_ is wrong with you?"

Lena turned but her burning anger did not subside. She thought she'd gotten over people accusing her of things. She thought she could build her relationships back up, but she knew that all she could ever do was destroy them in her selfishness and drown them in her wrath.

"Nothing. I'll get my stuff and leave."

She turned to go, but Emily stopped her, reaching out that thin, delicate hand. "Lena, please, that's not what I meant."

Lena pulled away from the touch her body ached for. "It doesn't matter what you meant. You said you wanted me out."

Emily slammed her hand down on the wooden bench. "That's not what I _said_ , Lena. _Please_ , stop being so… so…"

 _Selfish_ , Lena thought, knowing. This is exactly what she'd done back at home before she took off in the night on her own. She remembered Athena's words to her.

"Stop being so _selfish_ , Lena!"

Lena swallowed but didn't look up at Emily. She would stay. She would talk. But she needed space to cool off.

"I'm going back to get a shower. You get off at one, right?"

The shaky breath Emily took made Lena's heart squeeze. "Will you still be there?"

Lena nodded but felt her soul screaming to run away. To run so far away. "Yeah," she said and hoped Emily wouldn't hear her voice crack.

* * *

Staying caged in the house didn't suit Lena very well, so she showered and killed the next hour before Emily got back by going to pick up a crumpled pack of cheap cigarettes. She sat outside, her hair dripping despite the sweltering heat. She rolled her cigarette in her fingers and tossed small rocks off down the side path. Every now and then, she'd take a draw, watching clouds of dust puff up with every small rock throw.

One of her tosses clattered against red dusted, white shoes.

"I didn't think you'd be here," said a quiet voice.

Lena flicked her cigarette butt off onto the dust. "Said I would be, right?"

Emily frowned. "If you're done, come inside. Let's talk."

So Lena and Emily talked.

Some yelling happened.

Some crying happened.

Some laughing happened.

Emily, upon learning Lena's plans, didn't protest like so many others would have, and instead, she offered to help as much as she could, showing her plans that had been 'mysteriously' sent to her.

Lena rolled her eyes, confirming that this was _absolutely_ a setup. Sombra orchestrated all of this to _make_ Lena learn from her mistakes, whether or not she liked it, but somewhere inside her mind, she wondered why Sombra would bother in the first place. She was an incredibly neutral force, if a force at all. She was more like a wind that you weren't really sure was there but made you fix your hair in her phantom passing, making you react to her whether you intended to or not.

"That place is practically a fortress, Lena," Emily said softly.

Lena sighed. "I know, but Amélie needs me, and I know that this is where I'll find what I need." She paused. "So someone just… sent you these blueprints just because."

Emily swiped her screen and threw the information at Lena's phone. "I was really suspicious about it, but I didn't really know what to do with it after that. I couldn't really get in to do anymore research myself, but I can tell you about the security system around the place, and the system is exactly the same as the one mentioned in the miscellaneous notes - well, almost exact. The system was updated to the newest version, but otherwise, the data's solid."

Lena quirked an eyebrow and rested her fingertips on the scrolls of blueprints on the table. "You doing hacking these days?"

Emily smiled and ran her index finger down the back of Lena's hand, making her shiver with anticipation. "I heard someone say once that 'everything can be hacked and everyone.' Why not try it out for myself?"

Lena withdrew her hand from Emily's lingering touch with a shiver that reflected the cold fear of a small Hispanic woman rather than anything exciting. Dryly, Lena found herself saying, "You're as good at this as you are with writing."

Emily looked up at Lena, who'd circled around the coffee table to stand over Emily's shoulder. Lena's heart skipped almost to match the time of the waltz that had come on Emily's sound system. Emily said that music helped her think and write, but Lena couldn't see how. She could only listen to music when she was flying or doing anything small, but anything that required actual concentration, for Lena, couldn't mix with music. But right now… the air conditioner cold on her slightly sweaty skin… the quiet music coming from the few speakers around Emily's house… the tension between them wasn't the same as the night before. Then, it had been on the verge of exploding, a tripwire fraying and fraying to a messy blow up.

But once the blow up happened…

Lena could remember why she'd been attracted to Emily - her laugh, her smile, her warmth… Her anger, even. Her _passion_.

Lena reached out this time, and Emily didn't push away. She didn't even look up.

The two of them pored over blueprints together for the next hour, skin barely touching but still maintaining some light contact. Lena wasn't focusing on the blueprints any more than she was sure that Emily was but still maintaining the facade of business.

Lena could enjoy what she had right?

Lena _did_ enjoy herself and even called home when Emily went to pull her shift at the Brass Lantern.

"You guys _what_?" Lena pushed her hair back out of her face again for what felt like the bajillionth time.

Fareeha smiled but looked away from the camera. Angela sat beside her, and sure enough, Lena could see the simple bands around their fingers.

"We just got back today, and mama is making a completely unnecessary dinner, but… it's tradition."

Angela gently slapped Fareeha's arm. "You don't mind any more than I do."

Fareeha rolled her eyes. "It's just an engagement."

It was time for _Lena_ to be exasperated. " _Just?_ Come on, Fareeha. This is kind of a big deal."

Fareeha just shrugged, and Lena heard Jesse from off screen, and like a grappling hook, she felt longing strike her and cling to her in her heart. She missed Jesse and his embraces and his honest, if not too curt, words.

Even with Emily reminding her of home…

A thought struck her. "Hey, is Torb there? You guys don't have to leave or anything, but I do definitely want to give him a piece of my mind."

Angela blinked. "Torb…? I mean… yes, he's here, but I'll have to go get him."

Fareeha shook her head and patted Angela's arm. "No, I'll go. You can stay."

Jesse jumped the red cloth couch and landed beside Angela as Fareeha left. "Hey, kiddo. What's all this mess?" He waved around, and Lena could see that he'd gained back some of his weight that he'd seemed to have lost before arriving in Florence. His shirt was a little tight around the belly.

Lena blushed. "I ran into an old friend."

Jesse looked at Lena hard. "I don't like the way that sounds."

Lena couldn't help her face get darker, and she looked away. "Astute observation, cowboy."

Angela looked at Jesse then Lena then Jesse then Lena. "What?"

Jesse rolled his eyes and folded his arms, leaning back on the newer couch of the downstairs. "Ain't my business." He shook his head. "What is it with us and gals with the same name, Lena?"

"Hey!" Lena protested. "Amélie's name is different!"

Jesse shook his head. "No, it ain't, and you know it."

Lena was about to say something else, but the horrid man Torbjörn came onscreen. "What's all this about?"

Hot anger puffed up in Lena's chest. "Hey, there, asshole."

Angela gasped and Jesse smiled. "Lena!" Angela chided.

Lena shook her head. "Nah, Ang. Let me say my piece."

Torbjörn's chronic frown turned into a surprised look and his one eye shone clearly from his wrinkled face. "What?"

Lena leaned forward on her knees. "What's this about you runnin' all over the continents and knockin' up ladies and leavin'?"

The deadbeat dad of the century cocked his head. "I don't-"

Lena waved her hands. "Runnin' off and not tendin' to your kiddies. What the fuck, dude?"

She could see the wrinkled man begin to sweat as he tugged at his beard. "Those… uh. Those days are behind me, Lena."

"Right, right, whatever. Emily says otherwise."

Jesse laughed despite obviously trying to stifle it and it came out in a snorting hack of cough and laugh.

"Emily?" He blinked, as if trying to remember. "I don't, uh-"

Angela was the one to look shocked and outraged, then. "Torbjörn Lindholm!"

Lena almost laughed, but she saw how angry Angela actually was. Her face was red and her ears were creeping toward purple. "Oh, I'll have a word with you, mister." She looked up, her eyes still alight with flame. "Lena, it's been lovely to talk to you, but I think we need to discuss a certain _parental_ matter."

Angela practically flew to Torbjörn and pulled him away, her muscles straining as she hauled the brick shithouse of a man away.

Jesse was the only one who remained after a time, and Lena found herself smiling, but the satisfaction of the deadbeat dad being led away with protest fell away under Jesse's watchful eyes. He was still smiling, and while the expression was warm, his eyes were still hard.

"Lena, are you taking care of yourself?" he asked after a minute.

She shook her head with a sigh, her smile fading a little more. "I'm trying. It's hard when you're on the move all the time."

He nodded. "Are you any closer to an answer?"

Lena drew in a breath enough to puff out her cheeks then blow it out, slumping her shoulders a bit. "I'm almost at the base. I have blueprints and everything, and I should be able to strike in the next few days. It's only about a four hour ride from Junkertown, but it's the agents I'm worried about."

Jesse nodded but didn't need to ask. He knew that Lena didn't want to kill any more than she had to and that this would call for bloodshed. "You're not alone, are you? Hana said you found some guys, but I don't think Emily is exactly… Not if I remember right."

Lena wobbled her head and heard the doorlatch across the room click. Emily was home.

"I gotta go, but… yeah. I have some people and… I'm gonna come back for her, I think. If she wants to go."

Jesse nodded. "I understand just… Lena, be careful. We're heading out to Brazil this evening."

Lena blinked, feeling a bit left out. Intellectually, she knew that they would go without her, but this was the first time she wouldn't be with her crew on a big mission. It almost made her wonder if this was worth it… _No. You can't afford to think that way anymore. Amélie needs you._

"Be careful, Jesse." She smiled at him, but she could feel the longing on her face as clearly as Jesse could see it. "Take care of them for me, yeah?"

He nodded. "We love you, Lena. Bring her home. Bring home as many as you can. There's going to be a war."

Lena swallowed, wanting to talk more, but Emily had already come in and gone into her small bedroom to change into her pajamas.

"Come home safe, Jesse. And… I love you too. All of you."

He nodded and hung up, but Lena could read the conflicted emotions on his face as plain as day.

Lena sat on Emily's couch a second longer, listening to the pipes creak as Emily showered for the second time that day and staring through her transparent phone screen. The water shut off and Lena went to the fridge to find that Emily stole some food from her shift to munch on. There were two boxes of identical orders so Lena took one and cracked open a beer. Emily emerged a few minutes later and got her own box, silently following Lena's actions.

Lena looked up from her cold fries to see Emily's face - red, splotchy, and tear stained.

"Woah, woah."

Lena tossed down her flaccid piece of half eaten fry and went to comfort Emily, walking around her to hold her shaking hands.

"What is it, love?"

Emily shook her head and sniffled. "That was Jesse, wasn't it?"

Lena bit her lip but was honest. "Yeah…"

She sniffed again, ungracefully wiping at her face with her bare forearm.

Lena didn't know what to say or do. She knew that she couldn't imagine how Emily must be feeling - isolated, lonely, and deserted. "I think Angela's gonna murder Torb, for what it's worth."

Emily laughed, a strangled sound from her throat rather than anything mirthful.

But it was enough for Lena.

The next two days rolled in the same pattern, but Lena had presented the plan to her two henchpeople (as she sometimes thought them. It made her feel nefarious _and_ smart.) They'd both taken to it with enthusiasm, Roadhog with slightly more gusto than Lena anticipated, but that probably came from the fact she had a _plan_ rather than a half baked idea of something dangerous. They planned to leave that Friday - only two days away after Lena had presented the plans.

That only gave Lena a little more time with Emily.

"Hey, Emily?" Lena asked the morning before her departure only twenty four hours away.

"Yeah?"

"When do you work?"

Emily shook her head. "I'm taking the day off. Let's go do something fun."

Lena rolled over in Emily's bed, much more comfortable than the pull out, and smiled. "Fun? In the desert?"

Lena closed her eyes as Emily's warm, soft hand brushed her hair away from her forehead and rested lightly on her cheek, a wind stirring and unsettling piles of emotions.

The night before had been intense. Emily had held Lena, but instead of just holding her rigidly as she had the last couple nights, she'd held on tightly. Her lips had brushed Lena's neck. Her fingers traced against Lena's skin in unknowable patterns, lifting up her shirt just a bit and making it very hard for Lena to do what she really needed, which was sleep.

Emily had been the one to fall asleep first, and Lena found herself feeling a little too flustered to immediately fall asleep with no repercussions. And there _were_ some repercussions. She'd dreamed of Emily… and she'd dreamed of Amélie. And she'd dreamed of them together with her. Upon her.

Lena didn't really know how to handle that.

The two of them bummed a hoverbike from the junkyard - a project that Emily worked on from time to time that was more than functional, but she wanted to use it to win hoverbike races to rake in some extra cash and fame for Junkertown. She wanted to use that bike to show the region that Junkertown wasn't what everything thought - a band of thugs laying in wait to raid passersby.

Lena held onto Emily's small waist as they flew over the sand and earth like a skimmer on the water. Emily had cut Lena's hair out of a small kindness, and in this moment, Lena was incredibly glad for it. With the way her hair had gotten, it would have been a hassle to ride with the wind in her face like it was, goggles or none. Emily'd also convinced her not to go ahead and pour another box of pink on her head, trying instead for a silvery platinum that made her look like a bullet in the breeze instead of a bright pink disaster of a whirling dervish. She still held onto Hana's suit, of course.

The two sailed over a mountainous ridge, and Lena put her hand on the basket behind her, making sure it didn't go flying into the air. She missed coming over the red earth and seeing a swath of green below, but when she looked up, the sight made her heart almost stop.

Completely stunned, she flew down the hill, one hand around Emily's waist, one hand on the basket, and her mouth wide open. When her mind registered it, she almost wondered how there could be anything so green in this place that looked like another planet.

Emily looked over her shoulder, grinning wickedly, her hair flaring around her like a brilliant coppery mane. She looked wildly feline - a great cat looking back at her. _She looks like she could eat me alive_.

Lena pulled her hand back from the basket and around Emily's waist. Emily turned back around and drove the bike up under some sparse trees, shading them from the sun that had crept high in the sky and beat down mercilessly. Emily cut the engine and elbowed Lena in the ribs. Lena jumped and felt a giggle run through her like an electric shock - or maybe that was just because of the wobbly way her knees felt after clinging to the bike so hard.

 _Yeah, right. You're just flustered by a pretty girl._

Another part of Lena gasped in fake shock. _These are serious accusations, Ms. Oxton._

 _You're so fucking gay, don't even start._

Lena nodded to herself and dismounted, walking a few steps until she heard what sounded like water running. She turned a little as she heard Emily trotting up beside her and was taken aback by her sweet face. She didn't have her usual wicked grin or her overpowering frown. She looked more serene than Lena had seen in her in years. She hadn't looked this serene since…

Her face caught flame and she swallowed.

"I come here on my off days, sometimes, you know? It's the only green patch between the south coast and Alice Springs. It's only a thirty minute drive here, but almost no one ventures out that far anymore. Not northward. " She sighed but it was contented. "I haven't been able to do much with my life, but at least I have my little oasis."

Against her better judgment, Lena reached the short distance between them and brushed her fingers against Emily's. Emily took her hand, and Lena closed her eyes to just feel Emily's wind-bitten fingers and the rough patches of skin from working with mechanical things…

Small mammals crawled around and lizards plagued their small spot under the scrub trees, and Lena even dipped her feet in the spring, the coolness of the pool lowering her core temperature a little.

Emily laughed and Lena talked, waving and kicking back and just… relaxing in a way she hadn't since she'd last been around Amélie but even then, Lena had been on her guard. She loved those intimate times with Amélie, but she missed the times from Before when they could just go out and live without fear. Without tension. Except the tension that Lena brought with her every time she realized she was close to Mrs. Amélie Lacroix.

The electric tension Lena felt with Emily felt like it had all those years ago when they'd been unencumbered by the pressing, impending doom that overtook them and ravaged them.

Lena watched Emily watching the water ripple around their legs, her mouth moving quickly, but Lena couldn't hear the words for her heartbeat throbbing so loudly in her head. Her skin was all too aware of the pleasant pressure of Emily's fingers on her own. The cinnamon scent of Emily's shampoo drifted to Lena's nose with every passing breeze and shift of her hair.

She couldn't bear it much longer, but as if a distant bell rang to draw her back, Emily spoke with a pensive look.

"What happened to your accelerator?"

Lena blinked, dumbfounded. She hadn't thought about the contraption for a while. "Oh, uh. Winston." She wasn't exactly the most articulate while distracted by Emily's cute upturned nose wrinkled in a laugh. Lena swallowed. "He, uh, he helped me out and finally found a solution to getting that thing off me and not flying apart. He even said he was working on a stationary dock so I can just go without it entirely in certain places." She fiddled with the overly large, blue, glowing stud in her left ear. "Until then, he helped me get these going so I don't have to wear it all the time, except when I go on missions and stuff. These aren't very good for combat maneuvers."

She smiled over at Emily, looking away from her feet in the water, and Emily squeezed her hand. "I bet that lets you get back to your love life, huh?"

An ugly laugh that sounded more like a snarl viscerally ripped from Lena's throat, making Emily start a bit.

"No love life, then?" She asked with a canine-esque grin.

Lena shook her head. "Not since the last time we did."

Emily's beautiful pink lips opened and her eyebrows shot up. "Lena! That was…"

Lena laughed, a little less horrifyingly this time. "Yeah. What? Eight years ago? Maybe even nine?"

Emily shook her head solemnly. "I pity you, Lena Oxton, but I do not envy you."

Lena rolled her eyes and rolled her head to the side to look up at Emily. "I'd take pity sex at this point."

Emily flushed, and Lena realized the weight of her words. But… she couldn't retract them. Not when they were true.

Looking over the ridge from whence they came, Lena sighed, noting some grey clouds rolling with the low drum beat of thunder. Emily seemed to follow Lena's gaze and frantically stand, drying off her feet and shoving them into her boots.

"We don't want to get caught in that. Roxy can't handle it."

Roxy. The bike.

Lena nodded. "Let's get movin' then, love."

They arrived back just before rain falling in sheets made the bed of the crater known as Junkertown. They did not, however, arrive back at Emily's home before the deluge poured down on the two of them, and they ended up slipping and laughing and drenched before they arrived back, where they peeled off their layers down to the underwear to prevent tracking too much mud into the tiny carpeted home.

Lena was more than comfortable walking around in her boxers and sports bra as opposed to Emily, who tried to hide her slim body under her folded arms as she scuttled to her room for a change of clothes. She didn't do a great job of hiding herself, but Lena did her best to look away to give Emily some privacy… even though she really didn't want to.

It had been….. A Very Long Time.

Lena had just pulled a clean tank top over her head and her pants around her waist and turned to the kitchen to go for a glass of water when she realized that Emily's bedroom door was wide open with Emily herself standing rigidly - awkwardly and nervously - against the door frame.

She wouldn't look at Lena.

"Y'alright, love?" Lena asked, trying her best not to look at Emily's flat, lean stomach or her frilly underthings. Where did you even _get_ frilly underthings in the middle of nowhere?

Lena failed in not ogling Emily, but she only ogled a _little_.

Emily pushed her wet hair from her face despite no strands falling onto her soft facial features and an unmistakable blush bloomed on Emily's cheeks, neck, and chest like an exhibitionist flower seeking attention from a _very_ deprived, _very_ weak Lena.

"I'm okay," Emily mumbled.

"You're a little…"

"Underdressed?"

Lena's heart beat hard and fast but she laughed breathlessly - the kind of nervous laugh that would draw attention in public. In private, though, it was almost like that laugh just announced that Lena was feeling very much the same as Emily. Unsure how to proceed but vibrating with excitement.

But then… An image of Amélie flashed in Lena's mind like a pan fire. Her lovely lips parted and her eyes fluttering closed, gasping a name… a name… _her name_.

Lena looked away, feeling a little embarrassed. Logically, she knew that she was just desperate for attention and affection - starved for so long that any would make her rush toward the source in an attempt to sate her burning thrist, but emotionally… Emotionally, Lena knew that her feelings for Emily had always been unresolved, and that being here with her now was more than enough to satisfy her. Emotionally, Lena let herself get swept away for long enough to forget why she'd come to Australia. She let herself forget the weight and the burden she carried of trying to raise one of her own from the dead. She let herself let go of Gabriel Reyes even though he still had one hand around her throat.

For the moment, Lena let herself be selfish and self destructive, but Emily knew… right? Emily knew that this couldn't last any more than Lena did.

Emily walked forward to meet Lena halfway and Lena responded in turn.

They didn't miss each other's paths this time. They didn't brush by like a meteor skimming the earth. They collided like planets - a horribly destructive force that obliterated Lena's ability to care - to comprehend anything other than Emily's touch.

The first kiss between them in eight years was a tender one, the two of them attempting to click back in the thought and mindset of how tall and spatially aware they'd been when they were eighteen. Lena's held her hands a good inch away from Emily's waist even though Emily pushed herself against Lena, her padded bra hard against Lena's thin coverage and her arms almost immediately wrapping around Lena in a clinging desperation. Emily tasted as sweet as air after being underwater for a long time and as satisfying as a drink after a long day driving in the desert. Her lips were as soft as Lena had anticipated, missing the chapped, hard quality of Amélie's - of Widowmaker's - of whatever was in between.

Something within Lena snapped when Emily's tongue brushed her bottom lip, and she pulled away, trembling.

"Emily… I-"

Emily looked away, red faced and too flustered. "I know what you came to do, Lena. Just… just let me have this. Let _us_ have this. I know it was my fault last time, but we didn't even get to say-"

Lena didn't want to hear Emily say the word. They'd have to say it in the morning anyway.

Instead, Lena pushed herself closer to Emily, letting her hands rest on her ribcage and squeeze against her waist, kissing Emily like it was her last few minutes of life. Holding onto Emily like a liferaft. Holding onto something before she drifted away in this horrible, hot, dusty, gritty, hellish land. Holding onto something that made her feel _real_ and _alive_.

Unthinking, she started moving the two of them into Emily's room, almost tripping over her bag beside the door, but it was Emily who turned Lena and pushed her onto the queen sized bed. Lena looked up with wide, surprised eyes and couldn't help but smile as Emily crawled on top of her, breathing heavily and looking down at Lena, the blush that had been on her face spreading to most of her body.

Rain pattered on the tin roof.

Emily's heavy breath and the rain and Lena's own fluttering heartbeat were all beautiful harmonies with each other, and Lena began feeling a crescendo building within her despite the two of them barely having touched other than to kiss.

This feeling…

This feeling was intensely more explosive than how she'd felt with Amélie, but of course, then had been colored with melancholy and restraint.

Emily soon broke that sustained note by touching Lena's stomach with a sly smile. The two of them looked at one another, but Lena couldn't figure out how she looked to Emily - if she looked excited, nervous, afraid, or already on the edge. Emily didn't seem to care, though.

She leaned down and started kissing Lena, pressing her hips against Lena's, and involuntarily almost, Lena pushed back, sighing and leaning her head against the bed, eyes closed, as Emily trailed kisses down Lena's neck.

Behind those closed eyes, though, Lena saw Amélie recoil from her touch, seeing Reyes in her place, and Lena suddenly felt very small and very not into it.

"Emily…" She pulled away from Emily's sucking kisses, and Emily looked up, her green eyes burning.

"Is it her?"

Lena looked away. Her voice was quiet and shaking. "Yes…"

Emily's voice was low and filled with a purring determination but her eyes were sad. "Whatever it takes, Lena. Whatever it takes, I don't care. If it'll help, think of her. Call me her name. I don't care. Just… whatever it takes."

At that, strangely enough for Lena, her worries melted away. She closed her eyes, feeling Emily's touch, and her mind started translating Emily's strong, nimble fingers into Amélie's. Emily didn't speak, as if to help preserve some of Lena's fantasy, and Lena felt herself slipping into it - slipping into getting lost in a fog of pleasure. Some part of her knew it wasn't healthy. The rest of her didn't care.

Emily and Lena built their own symphonic beauty, filled with Lena's increasingly louder cries and Emily's own soft sighs, as if gaining pleasure out of it for herself, and Lena vaguely noticed that Emily wasn't denying herself anything at all. Part of that fueled Lena's drive, but Emily didn't let Lena go from her grasp, and eight long years of unintentional celibacy made their activities feel like hours and hours.

Lena lost herself in the rolling waves of Emily's tongue and her kisses, imagining someone much darker and more dangerous giving her so much to indulge in. The fogginess consumed her and her mind ended up blanking out, riding out the seemingly endless edge of light and sweet, sweet harmony.

Through the fog, Lena managed to piece together the few words of Emily's sweet, musical voice. "Do it."

And Lena's body, without her mind seeming even remotely connected to it, rolled with the flow, a brilliant cacophony enveloping her body and mind and soul, and somewhere in the enveloping light and strain, Lena knew that she screamed Amélie's name.

* * *

The night drew on, the two of them intertwined and panting and sweating, eventually turning into drinking too much with more activities.

Lena woke the next morning with an unbelievable headache and sore abs and hips. Her fuzzy mind tried to piece some things together but she sloughed off into sleep again, feeling incredibly loose and relaxed.

When she finally woke, feeling a little less headachey and more herself, she rolled over in the soft sheets to find a naked Emily covered in bite and nail marks and blinked, looking frantically down at herself.

Her bruises were less intense but still there all the same.

 _It wasn't a dream_ …

And then another thought rolled in.

 _Oh no…_


	42. Seven Nation Army

"Sombra, I genuinely don't feel like dealing with your bullshit right now," he said as he covered his eyes. He didn't wear his mask in private, and considering that he ran the intelligence offices, he knew that there were no bugs or cameras in his room. He didn't care if people saw his face, really, but he wanted them to remember the mask before they could remember his features, as muddled as they were.

His cellular spread seemed to be getting worse.

The tiny woman sat leisurely in his favorite chair, and he could feel his skin boiling. It was almost like she knew _exactly_ how to push all of his buttons, but at the same time, she helped him like no one else could. He _needed_ her and he _hated_ it.

Gabriel Reyes balled up his fist in an effort to ground himself with pain. It was getting harder and harder to focus the longer he went without treatment, but he didn't trust any doctor to help him anymore. He'd had to kill his favorite for treason conspiracy.

Now that Sombra was here though…

"Listen, I'll play your silly ass games if you help me out. I scratch your back, you scratch mine." But then, he sighed, feeling a bit put out and thinking of his rule against women in the facility. The two Barlow brats had done a good job of blending in, and he was more than happy to let young men join his force, but after _his_ Widowmaker had gone rogue and he'd killed the last, he wouldn't allow _any_ women in his fortress, knowing that they would, without a doubt, destroy the place from the inside out.

Sombra, though, was different. She didn't care about any of them, and that much was clear. He didn't fear her even though, he knew somewhere in his mind, he probably should.

She rolled her eyes. "Do you really think I'm into _dealing_ with you, Reyes?"

"Sombra…" He growled in warning. She usually conceded when he pulled authoritarian.

She put her hands up placatingly, just like he knew she would, and he knew as well as she that this was just a game of formality. They were both cutthroat and self serving. She wasn't afraid of him anymore than he was afraid of her.

But it kept him on his toes. He couldn't afford to show weakness to her, so asking for a favor posed a serious dilemma for the two of them. That would put him in her debt. And she had him _very_ much in her debt already. But as long as _she_ felt like she was in control of _him_ then she would help.

"What do you need?" She asked, as if she didn't already know.

 _Formalities. All these fucking formalities. I said I would be done with these when I became king_.

Bureaucracy…

He grunted and went to sit on the end of his large, lavish bed, wrinkling the perfect gold spun silk comforter. "You know what I need. I need stabilization."

Her eyes, those cold blue eyes that were so unnatural, seemed to soften. "Is it the pain again, vieijto?"

He couldn't help but crack a little smile. Her affectionate but borderline insulting terms for him made him feel less… empty. Less hollow. Less lonely.

He shook his head and pulled the buckle snap on his gauntlet, which he tossed aside onto the floor. His hands creaked when they weren't supported by his armor. He paused before fumbling with the other latch, and Sombra sighed, coming to his side and popping it for him.

"You say it isn't the pain, but I can see how red your joints are from here. You can barely get out of your armor. What's up with you, man?" Her voice wasn't nearly as cutting as it had been before. She'd always been soft when it came to his physical ailments. If it hadn't been for her prosthetics, she'd be without her limbs. A product of war. A _child_ of war.

"I'm off my stabilizers."

She pulled back and looked up at him frowning. He felt chastized without her saying anything, and he looked away from the small woman's glare. "And why is that?"

He shrugged and felt one of his shoulders crack hollowly. "Killed my doc."

She rolled her eyes. "I'll vet you another, but until then…" She reached into her jacket pocket, and Reaper felt himself tense, ready to knock a weapon from her hand. Instead, she pulled out a syringe. "You can at least trust that I won't kill you yet."

 _Yet._ But she always said that, didn't she?

"You're not a very fun target right now. So until I get you a new doc and get you patched back up, I'm giving you some serum I stole from a certain someone's files to help you stay on the upside."

Reaper narrowed his eyes at this frail looking woman. "What do you want in return, Sombra?"

Her feline grin told him that he was on the money as far as their transactional exchanges. She scratched his back, so now he had to scratch hers.

"First, lie down. You need to get this in you quick. Take a quick nap, I'll find you a doc, and then we'll talk when you wake up."

He didn't really have a choice. It'd been only a few hours since he'd last slept, and he'd been out in the field less and less, but he couldn't manage more than about five hours without needing to catch rest again. He felt like his body was crumbling and his mind was fevered and plagued.

In spite of it all, he'd managed to organize his troops into a horseshoe formation around the presumed area that the Overwatch crew still remained. It was so _stupid_ of them to stay in one place for so long, and he'd caught wind that Angela Ziegler, his favorite target, and Fareeha Amari going out and returning to the Drachten train station three days apart. He'd sent spies to watch them and genuinely wished he hadn't. Angela Ziegler had gotten engaged on that trip. To Fareeha. To someone he once thought of as his own child. A shame she was tangled in this, really. She'd have to go, too.

She and her traitor bitch mother.

Word on the wind was that Ana was there with them, too.

"Hey, hey, hey. I don't know what you're thinking about, but think about puppies or some shit. This isn't going to be pleasant if you're so focused on stupid shit. I can hear your breathing change. So stop it."

Reaper cracked open an eye with a small, tight smile and tried to think about something that didn't enrage him quite as much. It was hard, but he was glad for it.

His dreams reflected his thoughts.

He dreamed of times with Jack and Ana, running around together being happy and rowdy and generally a nuisance. They laughed a lot. They drank a lot. They fucked a lot.

It was really an ideal relationship to Reyes.

They all made up for each other's flaws and faults and weaknesses, but they also offered their own problems, which were easily dealt with since there were three of them.

He dreamed of hauling little Fareeha onto his shoulders and giving her whole bags of her favorite candies to hide from Ana, but of course Ana knew that he was doing that. He'd never _actually_ go behind Ana's back, but it helped Fareeha to feel like she had something secret with one of her father figures.

He dreamed of holding Jack's hand and overlooking the playground where a rowdy teenager dressed like a cowboy let the tiny Fareeha ride on his back like a horse, even though she was probably too big to do it without hurting him.

He dreamed of being proud of his family.

He dreamed of being happy.

And for once, he didn't dream of Angela.

When he awoke, Sombra was still sitting in "her" chair and had a lavender display in front of her, but the images on this side were blurred too much for Reaper to see what she was looking at. Her whole demeanor seemed very… smug.

He moved a little and paused, feeling… an absence of pain where it had been so terrible and pressing before. His mind seemed cooler, less fevered. He licked his lips, which were no longer dry and cracked. When he sat up, though, the deep pain in his pelvis thrummed with a baseline note. He'd shattered it in the accident. It would always hurt.

"What are you so smug about?"

Sombra looked up with wide, startled eyes, and closed her panel a little too quickly to be innocent. She paused, and Reaper thought he saw her hesitate. But no, that would have been showing her unarmored belly to a very dangerous man.

"It's nothing. Some plans I had are going very well." She smiled widely with her piranha-like grin and leaned back casually, belying her earlier expression of interest. "Now, business time. I have a doctor undergoing some certain… measures to make sure that he's worthy, but I know that his credentials are _incredible_. But… jéfe, my back itches."

Reaper rolled his eyes and himself out of bed. "What." It wasn't a question. It was a demand.

She threw her legs over the side of the chair she'd taken as her own. "You have a base in Australia."

He raised an eyebrow, feeling his face begin to crawl. "Yeah, the one in Alice Springs."

Her eyes widened in pleasant surprise, if Reaper read his old friend's face correctly. "You're very… _in tune_ with your organization, Reyes."

He didn't like being called that but he let it pass. If he argued with her every time she did something he didn't like, well… he'd never get anything done.

"It's my responsibility. What about it?"

Sombra draped her arm over her face dramatically. "If, oh, only _if_ you knew someone who was the _best_ at intelligence gathering…"

"Dios mio, Sombra, what _is it_?"

She peeked out from under her brightly colored prosthetic arm. "You need to move ninety-five percent of your men out of there by 16:00."

A mostly dormant volcano became _very_ active _very_ suddenly. "That's… How long do I have?"

She tilted her head. "Six hours."

His mouth fell open. "I've been asleep for…"

She shook her head. "You needed it. I put a sedative in there so you would sit your ass down for a while."

 _Ten hours gone…_

He took a breath through his nose to try to quell the raging molten slag within his heart. It worked. Barely. "You do it, then. You organize it. I have more things to do."

He started walking toward the door, without his armor or his mask and thought better of it.

"If it's Overwatch, I've got tabs on them. I know what they plan, and you'll never get that stupid ass horseshoe to work. They're arial as much as grounded, you know that." She sighed. "It's going to come down to a central confrontation, and you know it."

He ground his teeth and the volcano started over again, rumbling and rolling and hissing.

Sombra continued with no regard to his rage, however. "Go clear your boys out. Some shit's about to go down."

He didn't want to take orders from this tiny thing, but he listened. He knew she was right, and he knew that any moment wasted would jeopardize more of his men.

"What's going on, Sombra? What can't _my_ men take down?"

Sombra blinked. "Well, if you really want to know. Two internationally wanted criminals, a hacker, and a very repressed lesbian."

* * *

Reaper listened to the sound of his boots clomp down on the metal walkways crossing over his underground empire. Only he was allowed to go up this far anymore. He'd cut off access from the fourth floor down to keep out anyone for certain. He'd taken a room of his own and gotten some of his men to furnish it, but he didn't ask them to furnish it like a king's room. He smiled to himself under the mask.

They treated him like he _ought_ to be treated.

 _You're being an ass_ , said a voice in his mind that he'd nearly forgotten the sound.

Reaper grumbled to himself as he walked into his own special elevator and jammed the button to the intelligence hall a little too firmly.

"I deserve this," Reaper whispered.

 _You used to deserve this, Gabe_ , whispered Ana's voice.

 _Now what are you?_ Jack accosted again.

Reaper's stomach twisted. He didn't like thinking about them unless it was to fuel him. They gave him _targets_. That's all they were… right?

No, even Reaper, the reincarnation of Gabriel Reyes into something of solid power, knew that he couldn't just cast off his former lovers - his former friends and allies and _beloveds_ \- as mere targets. They were linchpins of the remaining Overwatch agency. The _keystone_ , however, was Angela Ziegler, and she needed to go more than the other two. The others would never return to their leadership positions, not like he had, and instead, they'd let their precious organization fall into the hands of an overly emotional doctor that had a god complex and a vengeful side.

To Reaper, Angela Ziegler's Overwatch was no better than Barlow's Talon.

Except…

Angela's Overwatch couldn't be reformed, and as long as any vestige of it remained, there would be a threat to his empire.

He smiled to himself as he departed the elevator.

 _Whatever Sombra gave me… She did it to_ _ **help**_ _me._

He felt more in control of his mind than he had in weeks. He'd been so enveloped in the burning and decay that his mind had started to go threadbare from overuse - overheating. Molecules and atoms vibrating so fiercely that they threatened to rip themselves apart.

He hadn't appeared to his men in the flesh in two weeks, he was sure, and when he helped himself into the intelligence hall, the leading commander - Jes Ling - snapped to attention with a surprised hiss. His eyes were wide. Unprepared.

That made Reaper smile.

He didn't want anyone to get comfortable. Unpredictability was power, and in this power was the potential to keep everyone under control - on their best behavior for the time when Reaper would actually appear to them. A message from their _god_ passed onto their commanding leaders and then down the chain.

Once, he'd thought the practice silly. To rule a people, the people must rule the governing authority, but now that he was on top, he saw the error of his ways. Fear - not comradery - would drive these men into obedience and unwavering loyalty.

"I want to be briefed on the pathetic Overwatch Headquarters and movements," he demanded curtly. The man began moving quickly - too quickly to be comfortable.

Reaper turned his head languidly to the side at someone who fastidiously stared at their screen. One of the Barlow children. The older one… What was their name?

"You there."

The child looked up, lean face gaunt in the light. "Yes, sir."

"I want you to move all but ten of our troops from the Australian base."

The child didn't waver. Ah, children… The tools of war. "Alice Springs, sir?"

"Yes."

"Yes, sir."

He'd almost expected questions and was more than pleased when he was not interrogated about his actions. His most recent slaughter of the disloyal must have struck a chord with his underlings.

 _You're driving them into what they used to be. You've become what you hated so much_ , whispered Jack again.

Those words… those words enraged him. The small officer - the elder Barlow child - seemed to tint with a reddish hue and to sizzle like hot air on hot concrete. The urge to destroy the child's console rippled through him like black waves rolling and building - building into a tsunami ready to destroy.

He _could_ kill them all.

He _could_ replace them.

 _No_.

He'd been having those kinds of thoughts more and more often anymore even though he knew better, and some small part of him began to worry that he was starting to lose control of himself. His thoughts would be the first things to go, he knew. His body would be the second. His mind would be the last, and he'd get to watch all of the dreadful things he'd done come to pass before his eyes without being able to change a damn thing.

And one part of Gabriel Reyes fought to overthrow what he'd become as Reaper.

But that part of him was so small that it was easy to ignore and forget.

He turned away from the intelligence office without another word or glance.

He needed to talk to his only friend left.

"I'm going to show weakness to you, Sombra, and I need you to correct it."

The small woman, curled up in the chair, looked up brightly, and he wondered if she ever needed to sleep. She closed the panel she was fiddling with and swished around.

He paused as she rose and stretched, hearing her spine crack and pop. She yawned in a very feline way and shook out her hands.

"Wait… Have you been sitting there this whole time?"

"Yes?" She raised an eyebrow and started rummaging through her bag that sat slumped over - a weary traveller too full of miscellaneous mechanical objects to sit upright any longer. "You almost sound worried about me, viejito."

He unfastened his mask and rested it gently onto his dresser beside the door. A small crack over the eye caught his attention, and he leaned down to inspect it. Just a thread from his cowl. He picked it off and turned his attention back to the woman strolling over to his nightstand.

He didn't answer her sarcastic comment. There was business to be done. "Sombra, I'm spinning out of control, and I don't know what to do about it."

"That's why I'm getting you a doctor, Reyes."

Reaper sighed with no real exasperation hidden in it. "I'm thinking about making a visit before I go after the two going to Ecopoint Antarctica."

Sombra wrinkled her nose. "Ana Amari is not your friend, Gabriel."

He looked down at her and the tumultuous lakes of fire within him iced over. "Ana is the last one I might be able to salvage."

* * *

He watched the older woman take a sip of her tea and scan the book in her hands. Her hair fell over one side of her face, the side that didn't have an eyepatch, oddly enough, but then again, she'd never change the part of her hair.

That was one of the things that Reaper found himself absolutely enamored with - Ana Amari never changed. She was less quick on the draw to accuse and more thoughtful than Jack in every way - more quick witted and even still less compassionate. But… _passionate._

Reyes ruffled his scarf, pulling it closer around his face and hoping that no one would look at him too terribly hard. He felt so incredibly exposed in this white structured world with the cold biting his shifting skin and mussing his hair. He'd not been able to cut it or shave recently, and it made his face itch. Between the pain in his fingers and his swollen joints and his inability to hold fast of anything too substantial, he hadn't really been able to take care of himself very well.

He'd trimmed his facial hair, leaving most of it the way it had been when he was a younger man, and pulled back his hair. Sombra had been the one to help him pull together an outfit besides his usual black robes and armor - too conspicuous. She'd swapped out what surely would have caused a ruckus for a simple grey blazer and jeans.

It had been a while since he'd worn normal clothes that weren't his uniform or his pajamas, which were only standard issue garments of Talon. Oddly enough, he felt incredibly comfortable in this ensemble, possibly even more so than in his chosen armored uniform. It sure was a hell of a lot lighter and less itchy…

He policed his thoughts back to the small Egyptian woman sipping what was probably a mint and black tea mix - one of her favorites that was relatively easy to find, he knew.

Taking a breath to steady himself, he piled on the metal bar attached to the cafes glass door. Just as he'd anticipated, her watchful eye darted up from her book at the soft sound of chimes, but instead of returning to her book, it bored into him with a hard sharpness that he could not escape. He wouldn't show weakness to Ana. He had none to exploit any longer.

Gabriel Reyes had died and taken humanity with him.

Reaper was above that now.

So he thought...

He approached her small table, noting that, upon closer inspection, Ana Amari's book was of her usual variety - a paperback pulp novel in Arabic, brimming with filth and sex. He almost smiled. _Never ever changes…_

She set her book aside, her gaze watchful and, if he was correct, slightly amused. There was a glimmer in her eye that didn't quite match up to what he knew as her rage, but it was dangerously close to tipping into that realm.

He pulled out the chair quickly, and to his surprise and relief, it did not squeal against the tile floor. As he sat, however, Ana pushed her own chair back, calling attention to herself at least from the person nearest to their table and getting a dirty look.

 _Smart…_

"Gabriel," she said coolly, picking up her teacup with little regard or gravity.

Irritation rubbed at his raw ego - sandpaper grit and burning rawness. "Ana."

He didn't lean forward until the waiter came and went with his order. She still made no effort to look any differently than she had after the initial shock that flashed across her face like lightning in the night - gone but the afterimage still ghosted her features. The waiter returned with back coffee and left the two of them alone for the time being and only then did Ana speak.

"You've got some balls showing up here like this." A pause of absolute, unadulterated reproach made something inside Reaper stir. Was that… _shame?_

The emotion - the sensation - was so foreign to him that he looked away from her stare and shivered. His skin felt like soft patters of rain were hitting him - not noticeable to onlookers, he was sure, but the sensation couldn't be ignored.

Ana sighed, putting her book down, cover facing the table. "What do you want, Gabriel? I'm tired of your games."

"Curt as ever," he felt himself say with a small smile. It wasn't a cold thing like it usually was.

Sitting there in the small cafe with Ana, Reyes noticed his own heartbeat and the warmth of the central heating unit blowing by his face, thawing his frozen nose. The cup in his hands felt comforting and he could almost remember exactly when he and Ana had last done this - years ago but only minorly faded by time.

He rubbed his cheek and scratched at his stubble.

This was more human than he'd felt in so long…

But that wasn't what he came here to do. He had a job. A proposition.

"Ana…" He outstretched one of his scarred, gnarled hands to touch the one of hers that rested lightly on the book jacket.

She didn't flinch away, but she _did_ ignore his touch entirely. "You look like you have business in your heart and mind."

He sighed, drawing away from her and remembering how they used to be - so filled with harmony and cohesion. Now…

Reyes looked within himself to see that budding flower of humanity within him, and he encased it in the darkness of his desire for revenge and justice. The flower still remained, but it was at least hidden for the time being.

"I wanted to offer you a chance, Ana." He leaned back in his chair and took a slurp of the bitter drink in his hands.

She narrowed her eye at him. "Is this a deal?"

He nodded once. He didn't need to do more than that. He'd never needed to do anything than just look at Ana for them to have an entire conversation and then some. The most talking they ever did was naked, and even then, it was foul and wonderful.

Jack always wanted to talk things through, but Ana and Gabriel always had a silent understanding that doers usually have. They spoke out of formality, but he knew from the look in her eye her answer already. She would listen to his plea, but she would deny him unless he tried very hard.

In fact, he was going to have to try very hard in order to stay _alive_.

 _If anyone could, I'm sure it would be her._

"I don't want to shed any more blood than I already have-"

She scoffed. "Gabriel, please. So many have died by your hand, directly or indirectly."

A dark cloud of ash roiled over him, blotting out even more light that he could have allowed himself to feel. He clung to the darkness, though. He clung to it like his only life raft in this terrible world of light and exposure. He clung to his cloak and the shroud it offered.

"Ana, just listen." He could hear the granite in his voice - the obsidian knife he would tear her apart with. But he would restrain himself. For now.

She inclined her head with no apology.

"You've always understood me the most out of everyone at the old organization. You've trusted me with your child. You've trusted me with your life." He paused, letting the words sink in. He wanted her to _know_ how delicate this situation was and the gravity with which she needed to consider his offer, especially when her daughter's life was on the line, but some small part of him was earnest in his plea. "I can offer you safety from this place and these people and my wrath. I can take you and Fareeha away from here and protect you from anything. My roots run deep, and anywhere you wanted to go, I could ensure your protection and happiness."

Ana sighed and twisted her teacup in her hands, the faint smell of mint and orange tickling Reyes's nose. "You offer me little choice, Gabe, as always…"

He felt his own stony heart bang a reverberating beat. _Is she… conceding?_

"What would you have me do with Fareeha? You mention her but do not fully speak your offer." She didn't look up from her drink, which was going cold.

As Reyes looked at her, he could see the shadow of his younger life's lover - her skin smooth and glowing, her eyes sharper but kinder. She'd aged well, but she'd still aged. He couldn't lie to Ana Amari now as much as he ever could.

"My offer is… come with me - both you and Fareeha - and let me lay waste to that pitiful ragtag group calling themselves the remnants of a great organization." The bitterness from his words made his black coffee taste sweet. His bitterness tasted like Angela's moan in his mouth.

 _Angela_ … _Your time will come soon._

Ana narrowed her eye and leaned forward, releasing her tea and balling her thin hands into fists. Reyes knew that even though they looked frail, they could probably knock out the best with a single swing. "Reyes, I know you're surveilling us. I know that you know me and Reinhardt as well as Fareeha and Angela are engaged to be married." His blood ran cold. He hadn't heard. Ana's eye widened. "You haven't heard, _have_ you?"

He said nothing, temporarily unable to speak because his tongue was as turned to stone as the rest of him.

"My daughter's one happiness was against everything I wanted for her, Gabriel. I wanted to go with you the first time, but she joined Overwatch in her heart even if her soul hadn't officially been signed away yet. You knew that I couldn't take you up on it, and now you're back again, telling me to go with you and take her too but… This time… My daughter's happiness comes from a woman so kind and compassionate that she puts everyone else to shame. This woman is who _you_ tossed aside, Reyes. You _broke_ her and gave Fareeha what was left like some pre-fucked and fucked up inheritance." She took a breath but didn't stop there. Her words, though calm and cool, were positively seething with rage. Deep within himself, he felt something stirring like a pile of terrified leaves in the night. "You want to kill the only thing left that would make my daughter feel like life is worth living."

Fog gunned his throat and he blinked, eyes burning. Ana made him _feel_ …

 _This is weakness. There's no place for this in your kingdom. How are you supposed to rule when you can't even adhere to your own laws?_

He swallowed and cleared his throat, escaping back under the coolness of business. "Then you come with me."

She laughed in his face and his skin prickled. "You disgust me now, Gabriel. You want me to murder my own daughter?"

He set his jaw, clenching his teeth and huffing out words tinted with red lividity. "You're the last person I trust, Ana."

She stood, swiping her book off the counter and leaving money on the table. She leaned close and he could smell the cinnamon in her hair. He almost missed it. He almost grabbed her by her loose hair and made her scream.

But then, she did something unexpected. She kissed him gently and whispered, "Come home. We can fix this, Gabe."

He pulled away, leaving money on the table as well. "I've made my choice, Ana. You've made yours. Next time won't be as friendly."

And he walked out of the cafe, his lips still tingling with the all too familiar and completely foreign sensation of Ana's warm lips.

He couldn't stay.

Not when he had a large Russian and a Chinese girl to murder.


	43. Cold Cold Cold

"This is bullshit."

"I'm sure that Angela and Jack shared a reason for not giving us a teleporter for the trip…" _Even though it would have been nice_ , she didn't need to say but thought anyway.

The large, lovely woman beside her shook her head. "No, my little ice bear. They send us away at every turn of battle. Do they forget that we are as accustomed to war as they?"

Mei chewed on her lip and looked down the narrow passageway to the hidden hangar. She still had a few friends and colleagues that she could count on in a pinch. "I don't think it's because they think we're incompetent."

"Then why?" Her words weren't even hostile, but Mei felt sweat prickle under her arms.

"Uh, um…" She remembered back to Angela talking to her before the mission she and Zarya had been sent on.

" _Listen, I don't question your capabilities, but I do think that having Zarya on board in a place like Rio… Well… I feel like it's a disaster waiting to happen. There will be a mixed crowd, and in the heat of battle, I would really like it if we could keep our friends our friends."_

She'd been talking about the omnics, of course.

"You know why, Aleksandra…" She didn't really want to say it, but they couldn't deny that Zarya had a tendency to be a little indiscriminate when it came to firing into a crowd. She wouldn't hesitate to rip through innocently bystanding omnics to hit the guy behind them, and that was what Overwatch wanted to avoid _precisely_.

They'd already been blamed for a Tekhartha's death twice. There was no need to give the media any more power to hurt them.

Mei's ginormous girlfriend smiled wolfishly. "They know who I am."

But Mei just sighed and approached one of the planes they'd be taking southward. "You're a massive teddy bear. You even _like_ Zenyatta."

Aleksandra rolled a large shoulder coated in a puffy outer layer of magenta coat, but her eyes were still playful despite her snarl. Mei turned to walk up the cargo shuttle's boarding ramp, but she turned to glance at her strong-goddess girlfriend when she didn't hear heavy boots clomping up behind her.

"He's different. He understands." She paused for a long moment, putting a pink-nailed finger to her lips in thought. "You know what I'd _like_?" Mei's heart skipped as Aleksandra Zaryanova leaned against her enormous rifle with her scarred eyebrow quirked up, a mischievous grin on her face.

Mei could feel her face positively _burning_. "Wh-what's that?"

" _I'd_ like to break in this ship proper. How long do we have before we have to go? Twenty minutes, would you say?"

Mei began twisting the fingers on her thinsulate gloves nervously. "Uh, yes. That would put us ahead of the storm so we don't… get caught…"

A flash of numbness overwhelmed her, chilling her down to her marrow as she remembered sitting there, blankly staring at another flatlined comrade in their cryo-pod. The storm…

Mei shook her head and looked away from the concrete floor back up at Aleksandra whose face was less enthusiastically impish but still rather impish. "Are you okay, myshka?"

Mei managed to smile and push up her glasses before remembering exactly how Aleksandra wanted to spend those twenty minutes but… it had been a day or two…

"Let's… uh… let's get the heater going. Yeah?"

Aleksandra resumed her smug grin and clomped up behind Mei, setting down their few things in the cargo hold and pressing the lock on the ramp to make it close up. Mei went to the control board and typed in a few quick things. All Overwatch personnel had to know a little something about flying - at least enough to get you from point A to point B with an auto-pilot function, which was exactly what Mei Lin-Zhou was doing.

"Oh!" Aleksandra exclaimed excitedly. She plopped herself down on the left bench and went looking through one of her pockets with a wide grin like a child's. She apparently found what she was looking for in her pocket and went, "Oh…"

Mei glanced over, frowning. It was rare that Aleksandra sounded so _forlorn_. "What is it? Are you alright?"

The pink haired beauty shrugged. "I picked a flower I saw because I thought it was nice, but it got very crushed in my pocket."

Mei fixed her glasses and ambled over to where her girlfriend sat. The flower - a snowdrop - wasn't nearly as crushed as Aleksandra let on.

"I can make it work!" She clapped her hands and flapped them a little but started to feel silly.

Aleksandra caught her in a quick kiss to distract her from her shame and let Mei work her ice magic on the little flower, setting it on the dashboard like a crystalline pendant, and Zarya caught her lips again, this time more intensely passionate.

When Mei pulled back from the warm glowing sun that was her girlfriend, she sighed a little. "We… uh… we _do_ have twenty minutes or so."

Aleksandra smiled, her pretty delicate lips parting in a canine grin. "I'll make up for lost time then, yes?"

Feeling a little nervous like she always did, Mei sighed again with a little laugh. "Oh."

* * *

Mei adjusted her glasses and pulled back on her gloves before having to take them off again to fix her misaligned buttons on her coat. The plane started up on its own but wouldn't take off without someone in the pilot seat. She guessed it would be her and Aleksandra in the co-pilot seat, but she didn't mind. She'd been on cargo ship carries more than once and done all of the same things by herself. This time, she just had some company.

"So, what do you think they're going to want to do once we ice him?"

Aleksandra spun her chair three times before slowing down, grinning like a schoolkid. Sometimes it was kinda funny to just watch her. Mei was convinced that the others saw her as someone who was incredibly serious under the surface, but the only things she was _actually_ serious about were omnics, her past, and getting down and dirty at the most inappropriate times. Otherwise, she was as jovial and playful as anyone with a life of comforts and well-wishing. In some ways, she seemed incredibly childlike - in her wonder of the world and… of Mei. Mei couldn't ever really understand what Zarya saw in her, but she wasn't displeased that her girlfriend _did_ love her. Besides, their science talks always hit opposite ends of the spectrum and met in the middle. That was always exciting.

"Did you _really_ just make this joke?"

Mei beamed even though she knew her cheeks went pink, but then again, maybe they never faded from their redness of earlier activities. She shot finger guns at Alexandra with a confident smile. She knew that she could handle this small mission alone, and having her beloved there with her was only improving her mood, not to mention how utterly at ease she felt there alone with Aleksandra.

The gravity of their mission hadn't really hit home for Mei just yet. _Maybe that's why I'm in such a good mood._ Most of her still felt like she was just running to the store really quick for some milk, but the rest of her was more than a little preoccupied with her looming anxiety. For the time, at least, it was easy enough to ignore.

Maybe that was just a little bit of afterglow left over.

"How long is the flight?" Zarya yawned widely and ran a hand through her shock of pink hair, and Mei couldn't help but remember how her girlfriend had taken Lena in her arms and swung her around after learning about her pink hair dye gift.

" _We will be like twins, yes? The pup and the bear._ "

Her nostalgia tinted grey and melancholy at the thought of Lena. She'd been the one to get everyone into this mess, but Mei couldn't be mad about it. Everyone else blustered and felt overly self-righteous, but she knew as well as anyone that they would do the exact same things for the people they loved. Mei was just the only one to admit it to herself and accept it.

"It's only about six hours, which isn't too bad, I think." Mei swirled her chair around once to mimic Aleksandra. "What do you want to do?"

Aleksandra grimaced. "Sitting around that long bothers me."

Mei finally let go of the plane's controls attached to her chair, impotent in the face of the autopilot, and rolled her eyes. "You don't seem to mind when it's at home."

The large woman rolled a very poofy shoulder. "This is not home."

"So… what _do_ you wanna do?" Mei caught herself twisting the fingers of her gloves again and placed her empty hands in her lap.

Aleksandra, who had sprawled out in her chair as if it were one of the recliners from home, just stared blankly at Mei, who groaned. "I'm gonna need a while before I'm up to that again."

Aleksandra offered her girlfriend a lovely ursine grin. "We have six hours. Take your time."

" _Okay_ , so um… _that_ aside…"

Abruptly, Aleksandra interrupted, her eyes glinting with the realization of an idea, but there was caution in them that made Mei nervous and blotting out a little of her blissful happiness. "What is it?"

"You do not talk about the Ecopoint very often, if at all. Why?"

She knew very damn well why, but Mei sighed, unbuckling herself from the pilot's chair. "Aleksandra, do we really have to do this now?"

Aleksandra set her strong jar in unwavering determination. "We have six hours."

"Might as well get it over with?"

Aleksandra nodded briskly.

They'd been together for the better part of a year, but every time that Ecopoint: Antarctica came up in conversation, Mei found herself needing to go do something else. They hadn't salvaged any of the material from the base and resorted to scavenging from Siberia and other eastern posts. They couldn't ever really afford to go too far without exposing themselves, but a quick plane ride here and there was never too much as long as they were careful. At first, they all had been too afraid to use their planes they managed to scavenge from the Swiss Headquarters, but by stealing back their own fuel and plane, they could fly around undetected.

Overwatch had the most advanced stealth tech of any organization or military force, so as long as they flew high, they could avoid detection and manage to do what they needed to. But… there was just one problem.

Their star pilot refused to fly, and no one was particularly confident enough to let anyone else fly in the face of less than ideal conditions.

The one they had to rely on most these days was Hana Song, and it wasn't particularly fair to rely on someone so young for so much.

"You do not have to, zvyozdochka." Zarya's face seemed a little too solemn, and Mei knew that she could relate. Her home…

She'd lost everyone…

"No, no. It's okay. Sorry. I got a little lost in thought there. Sorry." Mei adjusted her glasses and pulled her hair down from its bun.

"If it is too difficult…"

Mei shook her head and took a breath. She closed her eyes and tried to not let the frozen images of her friends overwhelm her. Their white eyes permanently open, unseeing but seeing all in their icy tomb.

Mei felt a warm pressure on her hand and opened her eyes to see Zarya squeezing her gloved fingers.

"It is okay."

"No, no. I, uh, I need to eventually." Mei tried to smile, but she knew it looked pitiful from the pained way Zarya's eyebrows twitched together for half a second.

Mei took another breath, feeling the warmth of the heater battering her face. She licked her lips and looked down at Zarya's hand clasping her own. "We thought we would be okay, you know." She looked up just for a second, long enough to see her girlfriend's teeth snag her bottom lip. "There was a storm rolling in, and we sent out a call to try to confirm that we wouldn't have to evacuate." She shivered but not from literal cold, just the chill of her own memories.

" _Radio silence?" MacReady frowned, not knowing what really to do as much as anyone else._

 _Arrhenius leaned against one of the tables and looked out over the rest of the base from their extra thick windows. The solar array towers seemed to be in functional enough condition, and as long as they held, they would be safe. Mei looked down at one of the panels._

 _[Battery power sufficient: 97% Temperature: -41C]_

 _Arrhenius sighed. "I guess that means that either our comms were knocked out or that they're taking care of things too much to answer a lowly Ecopoint outpost."_

 _MacReady moved over to where Arrhenius was standing and threw their arm around the taller of the two. "Don't worry about it, Ar. This place was built to withstand polar storms, and you know it."_

 _Mei chewed on her bottom lip. "Well, I uh… This storm looks bigger than any we've seen so far, and we're still no closer to finding an answer than we were six months ago." She had a very bad feeling about this…_

" _Adams, do we have any data on the wind speed?"_

" _Hmm… Our sensors are picking up 140 kilometer per hour winds right now, but they've been increasing steadily for the last fifteen minutes."_

 _Mei touched the panel and zoomed in on Solar Tower #2, noting how one of the panels seemed a little dislodged. "Hey, Mac?"_

" _What's up?"_

" _We've got a loose panel on Tower 2. Do you think you can bolt it down before the storm gets here?"_

 _They shook their head solemnly. "Adam says that the storm will be on us faster than even_ _ **we**_ _thought."_

 _Arrhenius lightly tapped the long table they leaned on with a lightly balled fist. "It's gotta be the comms."_

 _Opara and Torres sat by idly, but the unease that settled over the six of them was more than a little obvious._

 _Adams, ever the optimist, smiled widely. "Like Mac said. This place is built to withstand storms."_

 _Mei smiled back. "Yeah, I guess we just need to… chill out…"_

 _Everyone in the room groaned in mock exasperation. Mei knew from the lowering shoulders that her comrades were at least a_ _ **little**_ _calmed by some of her levity, but she was just as stressed and concerned as they. This storm…_

Mei looked up into Aleksandra's eyes, which were dark and full of pity.

"You had no idea."

The words didn't do a lot to comfort Mei even though she'd mostly made her peace with it long ago. She let the negative waves of her own emotions wash over her and cleanse her body of any selfishness, which she often did when she felt a little too self-pitying. "No, but it still feels bad… I feel like I should have seen the panel sooner. I could have saved my friends' lives."

Aleksandra Zaryanova frowned. "Hmm… well… you _do_ wear glasses."

Mei frowned back at her before sticking her tongue out. "My vision isn't _that_ bad!"

"Are you kidding? You're, uh, what is the word…" Zarya put a thoughtful finger to her lips. "Ah, yes, that it is in English. You are snowblind."

Mei rolled her eyes and leaned back in her chair with one hand over her chest. "Oh," she said in as monotone a voice as possible. "You got me."

Zarya beamed like the sun reflecting off planes of white tundra.

The light brought by that smile banished the darkness of memory, at least temporarily.

Mei started off again, but found her energy dwindling for the subject. "Anyway… I… I don't know."

Her large girlfriend patted her hand gently. "It is okay. I will tell you a story from my childhood to help."

Even in her growing fatigue from reliving the worst times of her life, Mei managed to smile. "Sure."

Aleksandra nodded. "When I was small, when I was a _tiiiiny_ child, I asked my uncle to take me down to the city. We lived in a small village then, but we preferred it there. Quiet. Calm." She lolled her head to look up at the ship's roof. "My uncle refused. He refused and refused me. Because I was so small, I did not understand.

'We are safe here,' he said to me over and over.

But I didn't listen to him. I begged of him. My mother had fallen ill in the last month, and she could not take me to the city like she would every now and again. With my father being… gone… she tried her best to protect me. My uncle was my father at this point, yes?"

Mei nodded. She knew a little about Zarya's past but not enough, she felt. She knew that her father had been killed when she was just a small child and that her uncle had become her father figure, but she had no clue about her girlfriend's mother. _Is that why she won't go home?_

She'd tried time and time again over the last year to get Aleksandra to open up more, but she'd always say something like, 'It's in the past, now.'

"I finally convince him to go one day since it seemed like things had died down in the city." Her large sweeping motions weren't strange to Mei anymore. At first, she'd thought Zarya insincere because of her need to exaggerate everything with her arms, but then she learned that… that was just Aleksandra Zaryanova's way. "He tells me to be careful when we got off the train, but I was too excited. He promises me that he'll take me to my _favorite_ store and let me pick out my favorite candy." She shook her head. "We did not know how bad the city was. The news was quiet then, but when we left the station, it was a disaster area. He tries to get me back into the station, but the guards will not let us in."

Leaning forward, Zarya's eyes sparkled the way they most often did when she was telling glory stories. Her excitement was nearly tangible and definitely communicable. "Out of the next street come a horde of those robot beasts, and my uncle calmly says to me," She lowered her voice even more than it already was. "'Aleksandra, stand behind me and watch how this Zarya does it.'"

Something in Mei's mind clicked. If anyone had shortened _her_ last name, it would have driven her nuts. But suddenly… it made sense that Aleksandra would keep the nickname. Her uncle had been her everything to her for years.

"He pulls out a pistol as big as my head from his belt buckle and-" In a flash, she whipped up her left hand, which was in an L and pointed towards her. " _bang_!"

Her sudden burst made Mei jump a little, but she laughed despite her trilling heartbeat.

"He took down twenty before the train guard did _anything_ to help, and I _know_ he took down more than any of the others." Reverently but almost subconsciously it seemed, Zarya put her fist to her chest, thumb against her sternum. The movement made her jacket squeak. She almost always did that when she talked about her uncle or any of his heroism.

Uncertain how to respond as she always was when Aleksandra reveled in omnic death, Mei smiled at her girlfriend. Somewhere, she was still deeply unsettled by Aleksandra's… _overt_ hatred of the poor people, but she could also understand from where her terrible suspicion and rejection came. She was doing her best to overcome her general despairity regarding the group, but her racism was incredibly upsetting for everyone else.

 _I don't know how Zenyatta can manage to be so calm…_

But another voice whispered, _At least she isn't talking about slaughtering his people in front of him?_

She shook her head. She wouldn't excuse that kind of thinking, no matter the person. _She_ _ **is**_ _getting better, at least…_

Zarya's eyes fell to her hand clasping both of Mei's. She sighed with a small smile. "I know it upsets you to think about death, kotyonok… my little kitten." Mei felt her cheeks get warmer when Zarya squeezed her hand reassuringly. "I do not like to think about death either, but those of us who are unfortunate enough to have been immersed in it are more immune to its touches on our minds."

 _Dead… All dead… Adams… Torres… MacReady… All dead…_

Mei looked up at her girlfriend but didn't even try to smile though she felt the need to reassure rather than be reassured. "Death does not define us."

Zarya shook her head. "No, it doesn't... " Silence. Uncomfortable silence. "We must all face those we have lost eventually."

 _Sooner than later maybe_ …

* * *

Mei Ling-Zhou looked down at the frosty containers that held her friends and only felt a slight pang of sadness instead of what she'd felt on the plane. The way she'd remembered their eyes… their white and horribly unseeing eyes…

The icy coffins were completely frosted over from the inside, and her gratefulness was not at all short-lived. Her fingers brushed the dusty table where she'd sat not too long ago, it seemed, but then again, her memories of the time she was here were warped and faded around the edges. Had that been her mug sitting over by a frost encrusted computer screen that had been cracked and battered by debris? Had the computer been shattered when she'd managed to leave? When had it shattered?

"Are you alright, Mei?"

Mei started, pulling her gloved fingers away from the table and her eyes to Zarya. It was so rare that she used anything other than a pet name.

"Y-yes. I'm fine. It's best not to talk too much with the cold. Our balaclavas will freeze."

Zarya just nodded without saying anything. She'd been in Siberia. She'd _served_ in the Siberian army and faced cold almost as drastic as this. _Almost…_ If anyone knew how the cold affected breath vapor, it would be her girlfriend.

Zarya pointed at one of the cryo-beds. It was empty and for good reason. Mei shook her head and pointed to one two down. She tried to avoid reading the names on the screens, but those screens were just as frosted over as the corpses inside. Except for… The one that Zarya pointed at just moments before. Snow drifts had come through the broken windows to shield some of the spatter on the cryo-bed, but Mei knew it was there. Mei could see it through the powdery white-blue blanket. That had been Opara's cryo-bed.

Opara had been the one to take the loose panel from Tower #2 to the gut. Mei knew that she'd died instantly and that she never would have known, but when Mei thawed from her necessary sleep, she'd found one of her friends completely severed in half, blood everywhere. There wasn't even stink from the laceration of intestines. They'd frozen over. Everything had frozen over.

But Mei, still groggy and sick from cryo, managed to pull her friend out of the chamber and bury her on the grounds. Under the stairs.

Left hand staircase on the way from the heli-pad.

Mei shook her head for what felt like the billionth time as Aleksandra rocked one of the cryo-beds back and forth until she dislodged it from its port. Mei was sure that Winston could build a port relatively easy. All you needed was steady electricity supply and a generator specifically linked to the port. The cryo-tech was embedded in the pod's setup rather than any externally controlled system so that pods could be changed out as needed.

Her endothermic blaster was modeled off of the same tech as the cryo-pods, and she could do minor repairs on her own equipment, but she'd taught Winston the basics on how to fix up less complicated cryo-tech, and she'd shared what little information she'd been able to salvage from this particular Ecopoint.

She'd been researching how everything related with the omnic population increase and the more and more bizarre weather, but she was as close to putting things together as she had been when she'd first been at Ecopoint: Antarctica.

"How far is hike back? I may need break."

Mei frowned. "The complex isn't that big."

Aleksandra's face was almost entirely covered by a balaclava, but Mei could see strain in her posture. For the casual way that Aleksandra tossed the pod on her shoulder, the pod weighed almost 500 kilograms. Aleksandra's all time max weight just did break that limit, and it was no wonder that she was more than a little taxed.

"Let us go." The towering Aleksandra Zaryanova hunched over with a crushing weight on her back - Atlas in the snow.

Mei led the way, leaving behind her former friends, no. Her frozen friends. They were still her friends in her heart even if they were long dead and frozen where no one could extract them.

She only wished that could be the most of her problems at the moment.

Only a few meters out of the complex, the two trudged slowly in the rising winds. A drift of snow pelted them, and with it a black figure shifted in the grey of driving snow. Mei stopped as Zarya trudged up beside her, tossing down the cryo-pod like a light bag with no valuables in it and drawing out her Fucking Massive Particle Cannon.

"What is that?" Zarya whispered in this wind.

Mei shook her head cautiously. She didn't know, but she _did_ know that whatever it was wasn't supposed to be there. Their clothes should make them blend with their environment, but the Ecopoint behind them was but a dark background in an otherwise grey-white blur.

The black figure hesitated in the snow but then began drifting toward them faster than either thought possible.

"Get ready!" Zarya shouted, obviously casting off any possibility for hiding. Mei cringed, but her hand flew to her back, flipping on the cryo-container that would help her freeze her enemies. Her hands didn't shake, but her knees felt weak.

 _What_ _ **is**_ _that thing?_

Mei couldn't see her girlfriend's face, but she could hear the smile in her voice. Her hand went to her endothermic blaster from her back, and she swiped her surroundings clear of snow with her feet, digging up a small trough. It wasn't so much a fighting technique as a way to make sure her footing would hold.

The man in black coalesced, still fuzzy in the drifting snow, and approached, but no footfalls echoed in the near silent expanse, here. She wasn't sure if that spectre of a man would have made any noise, anyway - not once she realized who it was.

The chill in Mei's bones was not… that of fear. Nor was it of any negative emotion. Some part of her was more than alright - more than okay to die with her girlfriend and all of her friends that she'd left behind years ago.

She'd never seen her true opponent in the flesh, but she'd had nightmares about him based on the grainy images - a gritty figure emerging from the black with nothing but a skull for a face. The thing that struck her more than anything, though, was his eyes.

 _We can't fight him…_ Memory gored her like an angry bull. Lena's battered face. Angela's blackened throat. Jesse's arm torn clean off. Zenyatta's headless body resting on a metal slab. A chill that had nothing to do with the incoming storm washed over Mei.

 _We're going to die here._

The eyes….

The redness within them.

How the irises seemed to meld into his pupil.

How she could see them from five meters away.

She wasn't prepared for the darkness he emanated - not just metaphysically. Black flakes seemed to fall from him - volcanic ash in the whiteness of snow, a sign of a volcano on the edge of eruption.

She wasn't prepared for the sheer gravity of this man.

And she wasn't ready for the terror that oozed from every screeching nerve and brain cell in her body from his unmasked, nearly human face.

But her hands were steady on her blaster, and a buzzing thrill ignited her soul.

She hadn't gotten to fight except in the skirmishes in Heerenveen. She didn't _like_ fighting, but something felt good about being able to contribute to something actually effective rather than something that just took up time and resources.

The man in black stood there for a time, only two meters setting them apart. Mei had half-expected a shot to have been fired already, but instead, the three stood apart, staring intently and silently.

"I haven't had a moment alone with the two of you," the gravelly voice roiled over the winds like millstones grinding together.

Neither of the women spoke, just stood there ready to throw up an ice wall to buy enough time to ready an attack.

He sighed, audible despite the storm rolling in. "You're _so_ much less theatrical than the others. At the very least, they gave me a show."

Another pause extended a million centuries in every direction.

"Fine. Have it your way."

In a flash, belying the agonizing slowness with which the mist drifted lazily over the tundra, the man - no - the wraith, Reaper, whirled, tossing up black flecks and fresh, powdery snow. From the spray, however, Mei caught glimpse of his taloned, black gloved hand reach inside his cloak.

Her arm had sense enough to start moving without her brain doing much processing.

The first shot startled her (unlike the unshakable Zarya, no longer the tender Aleksandra here), but not enough for her to miss putting up the ice wall that would save their lives… for the moment. She thought she heard someone swear, but it was too hard to decipher who it was from the pound of her heart in her ears.

Zarya held down her trigger and planted her feet wide to brace herself for her particle cannon's secondary fire, which shot off just as the ice wall came down. In the place of the ghost-man was more black mist, but that only allowed the two of them to buy more time and prepare a second move.

While Zarya's blast missed its mark _only_ because of incorporeality, it _did_ blast up enough snow to blind a target - the drawback, though, _obscuring_ the target.

Mei started moving within her cleared and packed disk of snow, but with the snowclothes, it wasn't necessarily as graceful as she would have liked. She had no complaints, though. The snowclothes would pad her from any lightweight shot since the innermost layer was light kevlar, and in some respect, they were just as natural to her as sweatpants and a sweater.

She could only trust that Zarya would cover her back in the same way she watched Zarya's, but she knew that their fighting styles would be different - her own imprecise until lethality compared to Zarya's. She wasn't going to endanger her girlfriend unnecessarily.

The snow spray fell and revealed nothing, making Mei back up until she nudged one of Zarya's boots.

"Where'd he go?" Mei whispered mostly to herself, scanning the fallen snow and the blurry horizons caused by _falling_ snow.

She glanced to the side, just quickly enough to catch the last vestiges of ashen mist swirling in opposition of the wind.

"Z, your nine!"

Zarya was already moving. Her boot crunched and scrunched the snow with a pivot as she swung her particle cannon toward her nine o'clock range, firing off another round of secondary fire. She predicted the path well enough and sprayed up snow enough to block out another available shot from the phantom.

 _He's just as human as you or I, Mei-Ling Zhou,_ a wizened older woman said to her not too long ago.

"Break!" shouted Zarya just as a blind shot from Reaper drove them apart.

"Get me close!" Mei shouted. It wasn't loud enough for her to yell like that, but she did anyway.

Zarya snatched down her balaclava to show a fearsome, ursine grin of a bear, white teeth sparkling even in the white landscape. "Whatever you want."

Mei wasn't bloodthirsty enough to be warmed, so she kept her balaclava on her face.

The pink-purple light and strong hum of the particle cannon cut through the snow and cast auras, refracted light bursting in prismic fashion and casting rainbow glow over their immediate surroundings. Mei dragged her foot in the snow again and checked the monitor strapped into one of her gloves. Glowing blue letters happily announced: **Blizzard charge: 40%**

The particle cannon smoked out Reaper, who threw himself toward the spot not covered by the duo. Zarya couldn't move very well with her particle cannon - not unless she was running in a straight line, and lowered mobility in combination with external and environmental factors could be deadly. Mei had to act as an offensive unit _and_ a defensive movement.

She took the cover and confusion as an opportunity and moved quickly, darting from her current position to one slightly diagonally and about a meter away. Another round of shotgun blasts rang out.

 _He's going easy on us. He has to be._

She took one more step, hearing the tell-tale hum of the particle cannon's primary fire, and paused. Black mist was already starting to form directly in front of her.

Almost subconsciously, her thumb clicked the endothermic blaster to secondary fire and she pulled up, both hands steadying her grip as an icicle formed on the end of her blaster.

 _Three… two… one…_ She fired, unblinking and unshaken.

Just as her finger pressed the trigger, Reaper, his maskless face, solidified in front of her - its sureness and grim smile contorting into rage and confusion for the briefest moment before pain and retribution bloomed with the bloodstains on his clothes.

She'd aimed for his heart but clearly missed, hitting him instead in the shoulder. She forgot how much pull the blaster had on its secondary fire. Blood splashed against the snow but faded after a few moments, and a horrible, terrible smile spread across Reaper's face.

His lips moved quickly, and Mei almost had to read them to understand what he'd said, but when it struck her, it chilled her to her core. "I'm stronger now than you'll ever know."

She shot again, but he dodged. Her hands still held strong.

 _Come on_ …

"You're covered!" An opalescent barrier around her gave her an advantage that she tried not to waste.

She moved as quickly as she could, reaching out a hand to grab onto Reaper's cloak and pull him closer.

It would have been an instantly fatal move if Zarya hadn't thrown up her shield for Mei just in time. A compacted feeling hit her gut and nearly knocked the wind out of her but she soldiered on instead of taking that brief moment. Reaper had fired directly into the barrier in an attempt to fatally wound her, but that wouldn't stop her. Even if he had hit her… She'd do anything she could to protect Aleksandra.

She snatched the sleeve of his robe and yanked him close, putting her blaster against _his_ stomach, and pulled the trigger without even the slightest hesitation.

"You need to chill the fuck out."

Mei didn't for a second think that her little shenanigans would _kill_ the immortal hell that was Reaper, but it would absolutely hurt. And he'd hurt her friends enough to deserve that kind of pain. But for him… it was only temporary.

Her cuff's monitor beeped and she smiled, pushing him backward. With her left hand she reached back and popped a tab on her portable cryo-tank that fed her blaster. Her cuff blinked the prompt: **Use voice activation code to commence sequence**.

"Freeze! Don't move!"

A small droid - her only friend for so long - popped from the top of the cryo-tube and danced along, darting to Mei's indicated area. In a blink, her floppy eared drone spun its way over to the gasping Reaper and started spinning fast enough to pull a circle of snow into a vortex, mixing with the cryotech with the surroundings to create an inescapable freezing circle.

Through the wall of snow thrown skyward, Mei saw black smoke just barely slipping through the gap.

With that… the man in black fled across the tundra, and Aleksandra Zarynova followed.

Mei stood there, completely dumbfounded for a minute. It hadn't ever happen before that someone got out of her Blizzard, but then again, she hadn't used it on people very often. She'd mostly used it on stationary targets to best preserve all the essential life-giving parts, and only twice had she used it with the intent to kill. She only became okay with killing after realizing she was responsible for the deaths at the Ecopoint. Their blood was on her hands.

And now, when she needed to take a life the most, she couldn't.

Aleksandra started moving before Mei could snap out of her fugue state. The large Russian woman moved more agilely than Mei realized she could with the winter gear and the ever-thickening snowfall and managed to get far enough away from Mei to become only a dark grey blur in the snow.

Mei glanced down at the cryo-pod several meters away and shook her head. She couldn't carry it herself. She turned her attention to the perfectly circular disk of bluish ice and waddled over, picking up her battery-drained friend and clicking them back into place, and turning to go, she noticed a shard of ice with uncharacteristic black flecks. Frowning, she broke the chunk off and put it in her pocket to look at later. The cryotech would keep it preserved for an extended period of time, at least.

After a minute or so, Aleksandra was back with a frown fit to turn the strongest men to stone. "I'll get the pod. You get the plane started."

Mei started trotting, only just noticing how bad the blizzard was starting to get. She hadn't paid enough attention… She hadn't paid enough attention the last time she got caught in a blizzard, and five people had died. She slammed the release button on the side of the cargo craft and the boarding ramp groaned in frozen protest but did eventually dislodge just in time for Zarya to come trudging up with the pod slung over her back.

Mei's sense of time must have been screwy. She hadn't realized several minutes had passed.

Zarya boarded even before she, and the feeling that something was off persisted.

She took her place in the pilot's chair, already knowing what the screen would say but found herself pleasantly surprised.

 _Opara's severed torso rolled out of the cryo-pod with a sickening, heavy thump. One of her fingers broke off._

Mei started panting but the feeling started to go from her fingers.

Zarya's warm hands took hers off the controls and pulled her from the chair. "Is been long day. Sit and rest, kotyonok. I will fly."

Mei could only nod a little bit, feeling her fingers be freed of her gloves before realizing that she was pulling them off with the heat still off in the central cabin. The plane had been set to maintain a thawing temperature, but it was still a little too cold to sit around without gloves or jackets.

Hot air blasted her face and made her nose run, but her body felt too heavy and far for her to wipe away the post nasal drip, and her glasses fell down her nose almost to the point of falling off.

 _I'm not supposed to be alive._

 _We… aren't supposed to be alive._

 _They didn't get to live, so why do we?_

Her mind played back the fight, and what a tiny skirmish it had been.

He'd fired off enough shots to throw down one set of shotguns, but not more than one set.

 _What was he doing?_

"I think that man was trying to find out what we were doing."

Mei glanced up, her body feeling a little less foreign but just has heavy. She found herself unable to speak.

"I think… I think his intel was bad or unreliable."

"Why?" The word was flat and strained.

The answer was simple but chilling. "He let us win."

That's when Mei remembered the chunk of cryo-ice in her pocket. Control of her body snapped back like a rubber band, and her hand darted into her coat pocket to retrieve the entrapped fog. "I got something."

Zarya didn't look away from the control screen for another moment, but as soon as she hit the lock, she glanced over. "What is this?"

"I think…" It dawned on Mei, making her more warm and excited than she thought she could be. "I think this is part of his cellular makeup."

A pause from a confused looking Zarya.

"We can study it!" Mei added, waving her arms a little.

Zarya smiled at that. "We can take him down."

"We can _kill_ him."

Zarya's wide eyes closed halfway in a feline expression, and she smiled. "You know, kitten, I heard you swear back there."

Mei's cheeks went hot and rosy. "Uh…"

"This is not something that I've heard before, yes?"

Mei couldn't look Zarya in the eye and set the chunk of Reaper-Ice on the dashboard alongside Zarya's gifted snowdrop. "I… don't usually."

Aleksandra sat with the same expression on her face before taking off her rabbit fur lined gloves and hat. "Is good sound. Very sexy."

Rosy wasn't a way to describe Mei's face at that point. She looked down and puffed out her blazing cheeks.

Zarya's warm hand touched the back of Mei's colder ones, making her look up despite her watering eyes. They did that when she was flustered.

"You look like you need hug. Yes?"

Mei nodded, and Aleksandra checked the monitor again before nodding to herself and unstrapping herself from the pilot's chair. She unbuckled Mei and pulled her into an embrace that reminded Mei of all the good times - laughing with her friends, knitting by a fire, making love to her girlfriend… And Zarya kissed Mei's neck, and Mei realized how long she'd been feeling less herself now that she felt safe, secure, and not threatened with ghosts.

"It is _very_ sexy, kitten."

Mei looked up and puffed her cheeks again, looking over her glasses. "I can be sexy!"

Aleksandra's smile widened. "Show me, then."

Maybe it was the close brush with death, or may it was the sudden snap back from dissociation. Maybe it was even the relief that she'd been able to face one of her biggest fears, but when Mei-Ling Zhou snapped back to herself completely, she was positively ravenous for Russian desert.


	44. The Other Side

Widowmaker looked down from her perch at the milling people like ants.

 _Fools. They know not what they are nor what they do._

 _Stop it! Just stop it!_ screamed the child inside.

 _No, you pitiful thing. You cannot protect yourself. You allowed yourself to be taken in by refugees and then hurt yourself. You cannot be trusted with this body._ Her face ached from the strange expression that'd fallen over it - a cruel smile.

She didn't remember being this explicitly malicious before, but then again, she didn't like to think about anything other than the present. Too much happened in the present to be distracted by anything else. Her focus had returned with her fulfillment of overtaking this body from the weak usurper.

Huddled atop the west corner of the easternmost Parliamentary building, Widowmaker watched people off all types drift lazily in rivulets from the building set, wondering which were faithful to her organization. She could not go back to them, not after all this time and the Usurper's actions, but she could very well do Talon's work on her own.

 _You_ _ **know**_ _Reyes has taken over Talon. Please… You know his intentions are different._

Widowmaker brushed away the child's pleas.

She had no loyalty to Reyes, and she knew very well that he would fall eventually. Talon as an organization was her home - her _core_.

She'd been taught to not contradict Reyes despite the sour flavor he brought to her tongue and the metallic remembrance of blood on her teeth, but she did refuse to acknowledge him as her authority… within reason. She wouldn't deny his authority over her in position, but acknowledging him as Talon's leader? Never. Her duty wasn't to _authorities_. It was to the people that upheld the revolution against those like her, and if she could be only a fragment of help against the surging tides, then she would do her part until she was no longer functional.

Without irritation, Widowmaker unfolded her legs and squinted against the glow of streetlights clicking on with the setting sun. If she had her visor or her rifle…

 _Qui est comme ça, et voilà comment il va_ , snapped the voice inside.

Widowmaker didn't have to piece out the wording. She knew the sentiment.

She should have been able to stifle that obnoxious voice within, but it had reemerged in the last few days louder than ever. It had taken enormous willpower to suppress it enough to ignore it for the most part, but that didn't stop the Usurper from knocking - no - beating on her mind's doors.

 _What am I doing here?_

The question bored its way though Widowmaker's mind, an insidious worm threatening to eat her alive, and her brain felt feverish. She tried to cast it aside, but pain in her hand bloomed like a time lapse photo, dull flares centralizing on a point - an angry gash from concrete, still yet to fully heal.

Amélie stirred underneath the pain that blossomed so furiously, and Widowmaker clenched her teeth, trying to hold the reins in her ever weakening hands. She tried to hold onto the pain - the reins - to help it ground her until she could feel it no longer.

Instead, the pain brought back searing memories electrified by currents Reyes forced through her until she was nearly unconscious. Unconscious… Sleep… _sleep…_

Amélie burst forth, feeling her body snap back to her like a rubber band snapping back against skin. She shuddered in the cold and pulled her jacket tighter around her. Her mind felt foggy as if she'd overslept a great deal, and her muddled thoughts seemed dull and too blended, unable to separate thought, action, and spatial awareness.

How long had it really been? How _long_ had she been out?

Her stomach rolled with a tremendous groan and she mimicked the noise in protest. _It's been too long. I had to leave but…_

She strained her dizzy mind, pushing through the detached mental fog to find out where she'd come from. More specifically, what routes she took to get to the roof of a very heavily surveilled building.

 _More importantly, what did I do_ _ **while**_ _I was out?_

* * *

"When things pop off, they're gonna really-"

" _EXPLODE?_ "

Lena sighed for what felt like the billionth time. Junkrat had been interjecting exactly when and where everything needed to blow up, which was everywhere and all the time.

She looked over the plans once more at Emily's house, feeling a little guilty that they were leaving while she was at work, but she couldn't sit around and wait. Things had to happen _today_.

A flash:

 _Emily's soft hair tickling her own bare stomach._

 _A gasp._

 _A name - something between Emily and Amélie._

Lena felt her face burn like the hardpan dirt in the scorching sun. There were a lot of reasons that she wanted to leave while Emily wasn't home. She didn't want to have to look Emily in the eye after the night they had. Emily had tried for some in the morning, too, but Lena declined politely as she could, saying that she had to get ready to meet the boys and be off, but by the time she'd gotten out of the shower, Emily was already off to work at the warehouse.

She collected herself when she saw the judgmental mask of Mako Rutledge gazing down upon her, waiting for her to finish her statement she'd started seemingly an eternity ago.

"As I was saying," she wheezed then cleared her throat of embarrassment and lingering lust. "When things pop off, they're really gonna pop. If I figure right, there's probably two hundred in just the central hall and approximately another hundred in the surrounding wings."

" **small**."

Lena nodded at the big boy. "Yeah, it's a small base, all things considered. From what Emily-" _Emily moaning Lena's name like she had all those years ago._ "From… what Emily said, the base was intended to be expanded into a full fledged base, but it never got off the ground after the territories in Australia collectively decided to become a neutral continent."

"Even small things can make a big, big boom!"

It hadn't taken much to convince Junkrat, especially after Lena had mentioned that there were probably new weapons and improved explosives that he could salvage, sell, or otherwise tinker with. The word "weapons" hadn't gotten much of a reaction other than a thoughtful chin-rubbing, but the word "explosives"... well…

It hadn't taken another word from Lena to convince the puppy-man.

"When do you think we should get going, since we all kinda know the schems?"

" _ **Now**_!" shouted Junkrat despite Lena and Mako standing right next to his face hole.

Lena cringed away from him but nodded her agreement. She didn't want to waste any more time than she already had.

 _What happened to me to make me so slow finding Amélie? Don't I care?_

The answer was that she knew very well that she needed to take care of herself and find her own way of doing things rather than rely on any kind of training, but she also knew the answer to her second question - yes. Something within her was convinced that Amélie was as dead as her long forgotten friends at the organization, but another part of her hoped that she was safe somewhere or at least out of sight. Confirmation of death would probably be the only thing that Lena would find in Alice Springs, and she wanted to put off that revelation as long as she possibly could. She also faced the fact that Amélie might be safe somewhere, out of harm's way and out of Talon's servers, which would make Lena's whole journey near pointless.

 _Sombra wouldn't do that, would she?_

 _Probably not_.

Sombra, Lena thought, had a nasty habit of popping up in unexpected places, taking too long to respond, and sending people on what felt like useless missions, but she would never cause any intentional hardship… unless you really pissed her off somehow. Lena was pretty sure she hadn't pissed off Sombra directly, so she felt partially safe from the small woman's wrath.

"I can move out as soon as you guys can." Lena looked around the small house where her former girlfriend lived and sighed. She didn't want to flee into the desert like Emily had done to her that first time around, but she couldn't see another way this time. But… she _would_ come back.

" _Stop being so_ _ **selfish**_ _, Lena,"_ cried a multitude of voices in her mind, an angelic cacophony of the worst kind - the actual biblical kind… not the fun kind. It scraped at her mind and tore at her heart.

She didn't know what she did or said to attract the attention of both Junkrat the oblivious and the watchful Mako, but she felt Jameson's hand on her shoulder. "You look a little…"

" **bad** ," Mako finished.

Lena laughed, but she heard how weak and tinny it sounded. It sounded like the laugh of a child right before they burst into tears, much like she felt right this second. "I think I'm ready to just… get going again."

 _You're going to have to stop running sometime, Lena_.

Lena pushed back against her rational mind. _Yeah, but now, I have to go find her. I've waited too long already._

Junkrat fidgeted and clicked his straps with his flesh hand and then started pinging his prosthetic leg on the floor. "Then what are we _waiting for?_ "

With that, Lena and the boys started gathering their few things and threw them in the car to fly into the desert at top speeds. She'd not forgotten how the wind felt in her hair, but she _did_ forget how bad her carsickness could be. They stopped more than once on the side of the road for Lena to wretch and gag. About forty-five minutes in, Mako spun the car in one direction, throwing them widely off course to stop at a gas station and pay for her a ginger ale and some crackers. He also pulled a sealed roll of antacids from his pocket, and she was mostly positive that they were only barely retaining their shape in the wrapper, crushed beyond all hope or repair.

She smiled up at the big man who only nodded in response, his face (thankfully) obscured by his usual mask. Roadie, the only one allowed to do any driving in the old, scary car, barreled down the road again and into a storm brewing on the horizon.

Junkrat began to get testy with the swollen, bruised clouds hanging overhead rumbling out their warning call. Lightning laced between the clouds, connecting them with blue-white umbilical cords, and the loud cymbal swish of rain cranked up over the engine's roar. It was only with the rain that Lena remembered how Junkrat was so protective of his non-waterproofed prosthetics. She peeled off her jacket, though sweaty, and threw it at him.

Her chronal accelerator glowed blue in the encroaching artificial darkness, and they all sat in silence, looking more and more like ghosts as they barreled toward the few stark, black buildings on a barren red landscape in the distance.

* * *

Amélie was waiting for her, and Lena knew it. Whether in life or in death. If it was in death, Lena would have to face the way she'd always been with Amélie - off to the side and pining for all eternity, but that would be okay for Lena, as long as she saw her Amélie again.

" _The only one allowed to take her life is me."_

And if it came to _that_ …

It scared her at first, but now, she thought she could make peace with that. She sure as fuck didn't want to die by Reaper's hand. She didn't want to die by his minions' hands either, but if it had to be…

 _You're getting stuck in that thought process again, Lena._

Lena shrugged off the comment made by Zenyatta's wise voice. She didn't _want_ to die, but she didn't want to be without Amélie… At least… Not for long… Another part of her drove her to spite everything that had happened to Amélie. She wanted to live long and be peaceful to live _for_ Amélie - to give a part of her life to Amélie to make up for all the years she'd been in so much pain.

A building creaked in the battering rain as they crept along on foot, and Lena jumped a little, as did Junkrat who went for a cannister on his harness. She put a hand out and steadied him and gave the unflappable Mako Rutledge a dirty look at his total lack of a reaction.

The buildings surrounding the low, central concrete structure in the center were all but completely destroyed. From a distance, the town just looked dark and low, not completely decimated, but there were still buildings there that smoked lightly in the falling rain - chemical fire and oil. Acrid smells drifted up through the abandoned streets, and tire tracks dug deep in the earth, ridged scars on the earth's sunburned skin.

 _They knew you were coming,_ whispered the most rational voice in her mind.

 _This is a trap. It was Emily. She sold you out again. She's going to feed you to the wolves,_ screamed the least rational, most paranoid part of her.

Lena pushed down her feelings like a good girl, focusing more on the mission than her own feelings.

 _They torched this hours ago but kept the fires burning to make sure that there wouldn't be anything left behind other than husks of buildings._ She noted as another beam crumbled and sent cinders flying like dying lightning bugs. _That means there are others still here even though they've mostly mobilized._

" **this is a garrison city**."

Junkrat hushed him more than Lena wanted, but the big man continued anyway.

" **i've seen something like this before. they move the major force out and fall back in.** "

Lena caught his drift. Chill despite the hot rain made her hairs stand on end. _False retreat._

"It's a trap," she breathed.

She tensed, her hands creeping closer to her pulse pistols, but she knew that she wouldn't be able to do too much damage unless she was close, and she didn't have proper armor, but then again, neither did her boys.

But.

Nothing happened as they inched closer to the central building - low-lying, unadorned thing it was.

No troops filed in.

No shots arched over the desolate landscape.

Nothing stirred except the three people in hot pursuit of phantom knowledge.

They reached a back entrance where Junkrat wiggled excitedly and was ready to blow the lock, but Lena tried the doorknob first, keycard still stuck in a scanner in hasty forgetfulness. The door swung inward on silent hinges, and the dim light of the stormy outside illuminated an even darker interior.

Lena started forward, plucking out a pistol and raising it up a good bit to prepare for an attack, but Roadhog's chains clinked and tinkled loudly in the quiet and he put a heaving, meaty hand on her shoulder.

She glanced up at him, and he was pointing to himself. " **tank**."

But she knew he was smiling under that fuck-off terrifying mask. She could hear it in his voice.

He shoved his way by and raised his scrap gun, a thing by his side that Lena hadn't seen him use even once in a threat. She followed him, unable to see around him but trusting him, and Junkrat followed from behind.

The tinkling chains of Roadhog's hook would far forewarn any still in the building, and it drove Lena nuts. She started to skirt around the big man and caught a shift in color out of the corner of her eye as the three of them passed through a doorframe.

Without thinking, she blinked, taking a step forward and launching herself several feet, the breath coming out of her in a _whuf_. She found herself standing a good bit away from her partners and she hunkered, peeking around another concrete corner to find a man in a lab coat clicking frantically on all panels he could his little hands on. Lena slipped away much to Roadhog's disgruntlement, and crept behind the man, pistol raised to the back of his head. He froze as the weapon brushed his short hair. Lena leaned in with a cold little laugh.

This man was helping people stay on this destructive path that would surely kill them all if it wasn't stopped. Ultimately, this man was helping Reyes, the man who took Amélie so so far away from her. Who took Gérard away from her. Who took her family from her.

"Whatcha lookin' at?" Her voice sounded impish even to her own ears but she didn't mind. She _reveled_ in making this small man feel even smaller.

The man's hands lifted off the panel in front of him. He started to turn.

But he didn't make it that far.

Lena Oxton pulled the trigger.

Large, hot droplets of blood caught her face and arms on the back splatter, and a mist painted the wall and control panel crimson. It was quick and probably painless. Probably only painful for a split second before he died.

Old Overwatch training kicked in almost instantaneously. _Don't feel sorry for the enemy._

She didn't. That's what scared her. She knew that she'd have to deal with her cold blooded killing later, but now…

Amélie.

She poked her head back around from the small control room and blinked back fast, a giant rusty hook flying toward her at top speed. After the hook passed and snatched back, Lena poked her head out again.

" **sorry** ," said a nearly unrepentant Roadhog.

"You almost _killed_ me!" Lena shouted against her better judgment. She knew damn well that would just attract attention. _But then again, this_ _ **is**_ _a good bottleneck._

"But he didn't!" interjected a helpful Junkrat.

Lena scowled over at Junkrat, her heart pounding a steady, quick beat in her ears and temples. It was so loud she almost missed the heavy boot clomping that came from down the next hallway, an uneven sound that broke regulation march and sounded more like panicked running than anything organized.

 _Why would Reyes leave behind his least capable?_

She knew why.

Culling the herd.

She shot a frantic look back at her boys, and Junkrat smiled wickedly with a reproachful glare from Roadhog, which deterred him exactly none.

He giggled a near mad scientist laugh and pulled an expandible beartrap from his harness - an inch thick disk with a metal ridge- and threw it far, farther than Lena thought possible for such a skinny man. Midair, the trap unfurled into a relatively large trap, teeth gleaming in the clinical light of the base's fluorescents. Just as it landed, a small force of men burst through the doorframe and barreled toward them all until two got caught on the trap, triggering it and getting their legs chomped off.

Lena wished she hadn't seen that.

She _really_ wished she hadn't seen that.

To put it so lightly in her mind was the only way she could stay focused on the task at hand rather than fade out mentally, but her hands still felt numb as the blood spray showered so eerily similar to the man she'd killed only minutes before. But… she'd watched friends die by her side, covering her in their blood. Wasting a few soulless flesh bags didn't bother her. No...

Their screams. Their _screams_ are what unnerved her most. They screamed and shrieked like the damned, clawing at their dark clad comrades beside them only to get bullets in each of their heads… by their own friends' hands.

She found herself in a crouch by Roadhog, who the men trained their rifles on first. On the other side, Junkrat had pulled out his frag launcher with one hand and the detonator for his concussion mine in the other. Suddenly on seeing how fearsome and well equipped they were, she was very, _VERY_ glad these men were on _her_ side.

There were only ten men, though, which was going to be less than no match for the three of them, even if ten would have given her some shit by herself. They might have given Roadhog a hard time alone. And they probably wouldn't have even touched Junkrat by himself, but against all three, there was no way they could get out alive. Three people had already died.

Lena put the pistol grip of her pulse pistol on Roadhog's massive side in a _hang on_ kind of gesture.

"We'll give you lads one minute before we completely lay you the fuck out. You can leave, and no one will stop you. If you turn on us though, you won't make it out."

She must have sounded incredibly forceful or Roadhog cracking his knuckles by gripping his scrap gun must have done some convincing. Three men lowered their weapons and four others wavered, but three held their ground, eyes hard as steel and as flat as the concrete floor underneath their feet.

The three began to depart, backing away slowly, and Lena started feeling a little better about not shedding _as_ much blood until the hardened three turned, shot, and returned to having their weapons trained on the formidable trio. The uncertain four straightened a little as their comrades' blood showered them in deceptively artistic scarlet puffs and bathed them in terror of compliance to Talon over any rational thought of fleeing.

 _Shit…_

Lena gripped her pistols a little more firmly and felt her legs become tight, ready to fly into battle or flee. And, as she'd become accustomed, her left leg panged with a familiar hurt. She held onto that hurt and made the first move.

She dashed to the side and heard the men behind her shift and start firing - the _ka-chunk, ka-chunk_ of Junkrat's frag launcher and the _sha-ping_ of the slow firing scrap gun in Roadhog's hand. But she couldn't worry about them now. She had to worry about not catching a stray bit of garbage, sure, but they were big boys. She threw herself in a blink, arms drawn back as to not smack herself in the face when she stopped, and trotted the few steps out of The Blue Space and behind the loose formation outside the doorway. If anything, she could use bodies as shields from any stray grenades.

Her arms raised and her fingers pulled triggers as if someone else moved her body for her. Blue warped halls and distorted bodies from her blinks. Her movements mimicked a marionette, moving and sliding in ways that didn't feel quite natural. Blurs of motion. Quick taps of triggers. Loud, concussive blasts. Her fingers went cold on the triggers as hot, gelatinous organ meat bespeckled her face and hands.

Had she done it?

Had it been spray from her companions' fire?

Lena descended from a blink and onto the back of one remaining Talon grunt, and his gun skittered away as he toppled face first to the floor. Her knee was firmly planted between his shoulder blades. If she remembered right, he was one of the less willing participants. Did this man deserve to die? She looked at the smooth face against the concrete floor. No, did this _child_ deserve to die? In a split second, she had her decision made for her.

With an unanticipated hardness entering this boy's eyes, his jaw moved in a way that made Lena's heart stop. Before he started convulsing, she knew what he'd done before she could stop it. His neck cracked and his chest heaved under her body, snot and spit and foam coming from a bloody mouth connecting to a stream from a bloody nose. The whites of his eyes were all that were left of the green that had been before, and Lena threw herself backward in disgust and shock and horror.

Cyanide was so… _archaic_ and _barbaric_ …

She didn't think Reyes would have reinstituted this…

She found herself scrambling on her hands and pushing herself further backward away from the last convulsions of the man who was barely older than a boy.

Lena found gaps in her memory later that she couldn't quite place what happened, but her memories linked together Mako scooping her up off the floor and dusting her off, Junkrat giving her back her jacket to cover the leavings of the shirt she'd all but ripped off trying to get the blood off her. The suit underneath was made of the same material as her typical orange and yellow suit, a material that let liquid of any variety roll right off without staining. Her tanktop hadn't been of that material and was completely drenched from the rain outside and the bloodbath of which she'd partaken.

The next consistent memory was standing in front of a large console, three more bodies lying about, but not from her hand. She didn't think, at least.

She heard the violent crack of Roadhog's shrapnel gun echo from down a hallway and winced. Her hands still felt warm from blood spatter even though she (at some unknown point) had cleaned them. In the dark screens, the panes below her fingertips reflected her face - spattered with new bloody freckles and smeared with darkness, probably more blood or machine oil. She reached up with shaking fingers and touched her face, but the freckles of someone else's life were immovable, dried and sealed as the fates of their former owners. The blank panels looked back at her judgmentally, and eerie echoes of Junkrat's mirthful laughter rang out in the chamber just off of the intelligence chamber.

The chamber she was in, other than a wall full of screens, only had ten desks, all immaculately cleaned and empty, a large central panel where she now stood, and a large folding table with stacks and stacks of loose papers wedged between file folders and manila envelopes.

Her fingers prodded every button and switch, but there were no labels on any buttons. Finding the power switch proved impossible, so with a heavy, defeated sigh over the chorus of Roadhog's thunderous and rumbling laughs complimented by the whipcrack bursts of Junkrat's high pitched squeals of glee she went over to the long plastic table and kicked it lightly before pulling off a thick folder and sitting in the table's shadow. The folder in her hands proudly held a smiling, bright face of a small child, sitting atop a very large, four legged sentry unit. Lena turned the page but quickly found that all of that folder was dedicated to a child genius and the sentry - OR1[5]4, otherwise known as Orisa. The only page that interested her past a mild intriguement was the one that showed Lúcio Correia dos Santos gesturing wildly in what looked like Numbani, but Lena had only been there once so she had to piece together context clues from the file. That particular bit of sleuthing hadn't been very productive.

She gumshoed her way instead into another folder than continue reading on the mysterious child prodigy. This one had a familiar face of a very foxy but very dangerous woman with purple in her hair and spite in her eyes. The folder was nearly empty save for selfie-esque photos of her flipping off cameras and making smug looks. One picture _did_ intrigue Lena though. A grainy picture of a small girl with wide, frightened eyes standing with her back against a wall as large omnics stood around her. Lena frowned and plucked out the picture, folding it neatly and putting it in her sports bra.

She sifted through approximate fifteen other folders of varying interest levels until she settled on one loose leaf of paper wedged at the bottom of the third stack. This one had a purple card with a skull and triangle shapes around the eyesockets paper-clipped to it. _Sombra's calling card…_

The leaf of paper was simple with very little description, a large picture taking up most of the simple sheet. A gritty, grainy picture that looked like it was from a traffic camera. Lena felt a chill the depth of an arctic blast frost over every vein in her body as though she'd been dipped in liquid nitrogen.

The curve of an overly bony shoulder. The high cheekbones and a haughty smirk of cruelty. Grainy but there. Grainy but so very there.

Then Lena realized that she hadn't anticipated something other than death or Amélie going on without her. She hadn't anticipated this.

Her cold, hard eyes. Eyes that could be as warm and soft as honey in summertime were not. Instead, they were cold, flat amber threatening to encase Lena and destroy her.

 _Shit…_


	45. Crush

Lena didn't say anything as she and her mates departed the premises in the gloomy outside. She just held on tighter and tighter to the grainy photo in her hand. Her hand felt on the edge of cramping, and she knew that she was just crinkling her only evidence she had that the woman she loved was still alive - her body if not her soul, at least.

The ride back to Emily's was filled with nothing but the resounding thought clanging like a vicious, bittersweet gong.

 _Widowmaker_ was alive.

She still had to go and find out if Amélie was still there somewhere.

She didn't hear the questions being asked even if she knew they floated around her ears like earwigs. She didn't hear the roar of the engine in its fullness. The music was only a dull beat like distant wings on muffled breezes. Nothing felt real to her senses. Nothing except the crinkled paper in her hand. Nothing but Widowmaker.

Emily greeted them a little more sourly than Lena had truly anticipated, but then again, she realized that some small part of her hadn't planned on making it out of the Talon base alive. The embrace shared between them was short, terse, and professional at best, and Lena hadn't fully become aware that she was out of harm's way until she sat in a bathtub, an annoyed Emily looking down at her.

"What did you do to yourself, Lena?"

Lena looked up but her head felt a thousand pounds on her shoulders, and her jaw fell slack as she looked up. Her hand still clenched the air as though she were still clutching the gritty photo and tiny report attached.

 _Kings Row_.

"What about Kings Row?"

Lena didn't pay Emily or her nudity much mind. "Where's the paper I had?"

Emily frowned. "I…" She stopped and shook her head. "It's on the counter where I left it."

"I need to go."

"Not now you don't," chastised Emily with a concerned yet set expression.

The way she chewed on her lips reminded Lena of the way Amélie had done the same when she was deep in thought or the time when she was convinced of Gérard's assassination so short a time away from the time she herself had done it. The way she did when she was most concerned for those around her. The way she did when she woke Lena in the night from her night terrors.

The lines blurred a little more for Lena but, at the same time, became all the more clear.

"Emily…"

Emily said nothing, and her apron was stained with what looked like blood. It must have been something from the restaurant.

"You come back here bloody and bruised, and you won't tell me what's going on at all. The big guy had to tell me." She looked down. "I thought we might be able to get back together, you know, but I don't think that anymore." She looked up at Lena with a sad smile. "Maybe another timeline, huh?"

Lena, still cold and naked and in the water of a very warm bath, looked up and closed her mouth. All she could do was give a short nod.

Lena had known from the time Emily broke it off the first time that they would never make it if they fell back into each other's arms, but Emily had kept Lena warm for a time and, above all, reminded her of what mattered and what she needed to do the most. The way Emily's upturned nose wrinkled told Lena everything she needed to know about Emily's position on the matter. It told her that Emily knew as well as she did _exactly_ the course of action about to unfold.

"Em…"

"I know. Get your face washed off. You've still got blood on it."

She turned to go, but she stopped with her hand on the doorknob. "Go get her, tiger."

After Lena managed to pull her fragmented thoughts back into her drifting mind, she shoved herself into some different clothes of Emily's and squirmed out of the bathroom and uncomfortably in the living room. Her tenuous grasp on keeping it together almost slipped from her hands when Junkrat piped up from Emily's couch. She wasn't in the house again.

"Oi, mate, what's this thing about your name not bein' _Tracy_? What's this Leeener? You mean to tell me that the thing on your chest isn't for aEsthetic? What's this about you bein' a part of _Overwatch_?"

Lena sighed and rolled her eyes, but a small smile managed to force its way onto her face.

* * *

"What? _What_?" Artfully gapped eyebrows furrowed on a blurry screen. "I'm _busy._ "

Lena frowned at the Melbourne airport. It had been days since she departed the company of the two large men, promising to send them a message through Emily who she promised entry into the new Overwatch grouping. Emily hadn't cared too much about it, but she didn't say no. Still, this time around, their parting, while a little chilly, was not overtly hostile.

"I need a ticket."

"Do I _look_ like a kiosk?"

"Can't use my money, love, you know that."

Sombra rolled her eyes with an exasperated groan. She waved her hand, and a lavender monitor appeared in the left corner of the screen on Lena's phone. "I'll get it taken care of. Be ready to get on a flight back to-"

"I'm going to London."

For the first time, Sombra looked up with a curious expression. "Oh?"

"I found her."

Sombra's smile spread like butter on a hot pan. "Found my note, huh?"

Lena frowned. "How long have you known?"

"That's not the _real_ question, cariña. The real question is, how willing are you to go to the ends of the earth for her?"

Confusion swirled within her and battered her tired, confused, traumatized mind. She was too tired to fight with the confusing woman and simply replied, "More willing than you will ever know."

Sombra's artificially blue eyes glittered in the bright, harsh light of wherever she was. Wherever it was… it was very loud. A thousand voices cried out over the speakers and blasted Lena's earholes through small earbuds she purchased in the airport. She turned her phone down to the bare minimum and had to watch Sombra's lips to get most of her words.

Sombra only nodded, seeming satisfied with Lena's answer. "Get on the plane then. I've gotten it taken care of."

Irritation tickled the back of her throat like an impending cough. "What do I tell the ticket holders?"

"Tell them 'Tracy's on board.'"

Lena boarded the plane without any difficulties and ended up sitting in first class… again… Some part of the experience irritated her, but she didn't complain when they gave her sweet wine and a _very_ decent meal free of charge. She hadn't realized how hungry she was until she smelled food wafting directly in her face. She knew that the flight would be long and tedious, but she was at least glad to have some time to rest before things got back to being hectic and rowdy.

As she sat and ate her beef curry like a good girl, she thought about how her life had gone from a relatively calm time with organizing battles and fights to a constantly stressed holding pattern with bursts of activity before retreating back in a hole. The steady pace that she'd had with Roadhog and Junkrat most suited her, but she didn't think she could sustain that kind of push at a constant rate.

She shoveled another too large hunk of gooey goodness in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. She hadn't been truly alone in a long time, and for once, it didn't bother her. She didn't feel that horrible knocking of encroaching loneliness on the doors of her mind, throwing rocks at her fragile glass house. Some part of Lena wondered why she was even remotely peaceful, but the rest of her knew for certain.

She didn't have to be afraid that Amélie was still alive in some way, even if it was only her body. If that was all that Lena could see again, at least one last time, it would be enough. It would be enough to let Lena move on with her life.

Memories shuffled around, loose papers on a disruptive breeze, and overwhelmed Lena temporarily, showing her the times that she'd been so _so_ close to Amélie - physically and emotionally. The recent times were all but gone from that stack, but Lena didn't forget the way Amélie had looked at her and pulled at the straps of her chronal accelerator. That hadn't been Widowmaker. And it had been real.

She held onto that as she leaned back after her empty plate was taken away. She held onto the realness of Amélie and the softness of her soul.

As dew that blankets gentle flowers so sleep crept upon Lena into dreamless rest.

When she awoke, they were still in the air, which was to be expected when the flight was almost a full day's worth the travel. They hadn't made it mandatory to disembark the plane while they refuelled and switched crews, for which Lena was grateful since she'd slept through the prompt. She pulled out her phone and called up Athena.

"Hey, love. You there?"

Athena - the body she'd formed not long after spending time with Zenyatta, not her logo - popped up on Lena's blueish screen. "Always."

Lena couldn't supress the smile that crept onto her face and the genuine calm in her heart. "Lookin' good, A."

Through the marvels of modern technology, the metallic body of Athena glowed in a blush. "Thank you, Lena. How can I help you?"

Lena shrugged and said, "I was gettin' lonely," which wasn't necessarily true, but she felt that she owed it to Athena to at _least_ have a small conversation with her. It had been a little while since they'd just had a good heart to heart.

"I was not anticipating this."

Lena shrugged again and stifled a yawn. "I've got some free time, for once."

Athena fell silent for a time then spoke with quiet concern. "You realize that you never responded to Hana's distressed message from a near week ago."

Nearly dropping her phone, Lena smacked her forehead and slumped in her seat. She'd been a real dick to Hana over the last few months, and when Hana really needed her, she'd forgotten.

"Guess I can't say I didn't have any signal, huh?"

With a coy humor that only Athena could harness, she quietly replied, "I guess not."

"Is she going to be mad at me…?" It was a genuine question. Everyone was fallible and everyone forgot something sometime, but Lena had been a real shithill and Hana's graces towards her were inevitably numbered or gone.

"It wouldn't hurt to send her a message now. I would advise against sending her video streaming since she's just made camp."

Lena frowned and tilted her head. "I thought they were moving out like… two days ago."

Athena bobbed her head and shifted. "The engagement feast went on a little longer than they anticipated, and more preparations were needed on the receiving end."

"Huh." Lena offered noncommittally. She'd been worried sick about her family going off into another warzone, and she was a little peeved that she hadn't been told, but then again, she hadn't been the most communicating person.

She swiped her screen over to her messages and popped one off to Hana.

 **[2/17 11:34 hey love i know ive been a huge knob lately but is everything alright]**

She sat and chatted idly with Athena about some of the information that she'd found at the Talon base - how Talon had been trying to reconstruct the supersoldiering program according to the designs before Angela had put her hands in the program, how a child prodigy was helping clean up the streets with a really neat bot-turned-omnic, how Lena had figured out that she really did want Emily to join their efforts as an organization even if their personal relationship would always be fraught with intense passion and awkwardness.

Athena listened, and instead of how she'd been over the last several weeks, engaged fully in the conversation, offering up her own knowledge of events related to the articles Lena found and giving the best advice she could - as an intelligent friend, not as an artificial intelligence.

The hard light device in her hand that served as her phone buzzed out a crystalline chime and Lena swiped to her messages eagerly.

 **[2/17 11:51 youre a huge dick but thats okay i know you mean well]**

 **[2/17 11:51 i miss you and brazil is so fucking hot but its okay]**

 **[2/17 11:52 i didnt get to tell you how cha boi got two sweet sweet lovers now]**

 **[2/17 11:52 its like a regular episode of the bachelor up in here]**

 **[2/17 11:53 an episode of what]**

 **[2/17 11:52 have you been watching jacks garbage]**

 **[2/17 11:54 ye ye you should watch with me when you get back]**

 **[2/17 11:55 if you have time that is]**

 **[2/17 11:56 its a date love xx]**

 **[2/17 11:57 holy SHIT]**

 **[2/17 11:57 100% YOUAERE alL My FUCKIGN GIRLFREIONGDS]**

 **[2/17 11:58 i see jacks been teaching you memes again]**

 **[2/17 11:58 fuck yeah dude get dunkd on]**

Lena couldn't help but smile. It had been too long since she and Hana had been able to joke around like friends instead of borderline adversaries - since Florence, to be exact. They'd been okay for the time after Florence and before Lena left, but there was still tension to some of their interactions. Even in this small text string, Lena could feel that that hostility - that confusion or whatever it was - was completely gone.

And Lena found herself missing home more terribly than ever.

 _Soon_ , she told herself, but Angela's words came to haunt her. If Amélie had been suffocated by Widowmaker, the odds of getting her back were slim to none.

" _She may go back and forth for the rest of her life, if the damage was significant,"_ Angela had said what felt like so long ago. " _If she switches while you're sleeping, Lena, it could be fatal for you."_

Lena would take that risk if Amélie was still in there. _If_ …

She spent the next while texting back and forth with Hana, getting sketchy and far spaced updates and talking to Athena. Every so often, she'd walk back to the lavatory to stretch her legs and would try to keep her face from being seen too much. London was a dangerous place for Lena Oxton.

She'd been plastered on the sides of buildings and billboards in Overwatch's fame like every country boasting their own champions. She was the British _poster child._ She couldn't be mistaken on the streets, and she knew it. Her hair color was definitely a nice change from the chestnut brown they all knew, but her face was the same as the tattered old signs sprayed over with red-lettered words like "Terrorists" and "Corrupt" and, her personal favorite and one just down the corner over from her most frequently visited Tesco, "Animal Led Cowards Steal Money and Make Soldiers Out of Our Babies."

She could definitively say that Overwatch only did _one_ of those things, and it wasn't the stealing.

As she departed the plane with her measly backpack and empty aluminium can that she tossed in the nearest recycle bin, she noticed a few double-glances from weathered airline employees and security guards. They didn't rush to arrest her, though, but instead stared at her quizzically before turning away and minding their own business.

 _Thank God that Emily dyed my hair._

She wove her way through wide eyed civilians, some of whom pulled their children tighter, and some of whom urged their children to slow her down, but she pushed on anyway. She needed to get out of the crowd.

She'd been here with Gérard when things had gone to shit one day. She'd been here by Jack's side when he was out doing small stuff to keep people happy. She'd been a regular flier here when she needed anything done small that could be taken care of in person and without force.

She'd come here in another life and been praised, and now that she was here, she was ignored by the vast majority - much to her relief, ridiculed under the breaths of some, and praised by even fewer.

After departing the airport with minimal difficulty, she fled into the encroaching night over London.

Lena tucked herself between buildings and slid like a snake in tall grass through the trickle of crowds leaving movies and bars and restaurants. None of them paid Lena any mind, but she had a feeling that she'd not had in Australia. While she'd been so far away, she hadn't worried about people noticing her, but now that she was back in a less backwater part of the world, that thrumming anxiety purred like an engine within her.

The wafting scent of cigarette smoke and familiar smell of the street made her heart race faster than she thought it would but… the place was just so _nostalgic_. Through the haze of fear, nostalgia was strong enough to knock her over and into a tidal wave of melancholy memory. Zipping down the street to buy Emily gifts. Leaping over roofs to prove a point to herself. Being rambunctious by herself and with her dearest friends, most of whom tragically perished in a worldwide purge of Overwatch agents. Soaring through open expanse after open expanse, her heart beating loud in her ears as her eyes fell upon the unnaturally blue skin of a woman Lena once loved.

Maybe that's how it would happen again.

Lena finding Widowmaker in the stead of Amélie…

 _No, you can't afford to think like that anymore_ , whispered the wise words of Fareeha.

 _You have to believe in something, Lena_ , chided Angela.

 _Go get your girl_ , encouraged Hana and Emily in unison.

Lena knew that London was a big enough city to scour for days and days and still not find Amélie, but the data tucked away in her pocket had the giant letters of Kings Row printed in the _Location_ section, which narrowed the selection down to a lower sector - a sector that Lena had been more than once but hadn't been to since the death of Mondatta Tekhartha years ago.

" _Sweet, foolish girl…"_

Lena shook her head and realized she'd wandered down path after path to get her near where she wanted to be, but it was late, and she'd flown many miles to get here. Sleeping would probably be impossible, and caffeine would just make her more weary at this point, so she opted for trying to sleep in whatever seedy, run down hotel she could find where she would afraid to even sit on the uncovered part of the bed. That wasn't the case, though, and she managed to find a decent hotel for a cash rate, no questions asked. It wasn't anywhere like she'd stayed in Melbourne for those few weeks, but it certainly wasn't a challenge to use the nice shampoo and soap and pull her towel off of a heated towel rack.

She decided to sleep without her clothes to preserve her laundry as much as possible. She'd been running low on her available funds for outside of her typical bank, which she saved for emergency cases only, and her foreign accounts would only get so small before the fees started rolling in. Their number was unusually high for a requirement, but there wasn't much she could do about it. Overwatch had always paid well and encouraged its employees to save for emergencies, but they'd also managed to tuck away the majority of everyone's money in offshore accounts that would only allow withdrawals to a certain amount until you reached a particular age range. It was a financial safeguard for Overwatch, and when the organization had dissolved, the offshore accounts still held fast to their word. She only used those accounts when she was out, and they quickly replenished their stores from donations and continual draw from the general Overwatch pool. Every time an agent died, the family was allotted their wealth, and everyone who served with them received compensation.

Lena didn't know how to feel about that - being paid to grieve her fallen friends, but it ensured her safety by keeping her able to stay under the radar and not have to integrate into the job market, which was the ultimate safety net for Overwatch agents.

Someone there seemed to know that, in the event that Overwatch fell, none of the members would have to go hit the streets and get tangled in the civilian world after years and years of indoctrination and service. It wasn't a true military. It was something much more… specified.

Lena had talked to Jack about it before, seeing as how he served both in a military force and in Overwatch, and he'd put it best.

" _The military is an organization to help protect individuals' rights for a country, but the leadership doesn't always do their job. Doesn't do what they're supposed to. It gets real political in a governmental military - bureaucratic bullshit. Get hamstrung every damn time you do anything and you just take orders. Overwatch… Overwatch might not be perfect, and there might be a lot of delegation, but never once have I heard anyone say 'it's not my problem.' Here, kid, Overwatch I mean, we try our best through our mistakes. We take care of everyone who needs help. Members have their own agency to feel free to take certain assignments or begin operations."_

Communication had been key for everyone there, and Lena wasn't ever particularly good at letting others know her plans, but she always took orders like she was supposed to. Now, more than ever, she wished she had someone to talk to - someone to coordinate with.

She snuggled down in her bed, feeling too jittery to sleep, but her eyes fell closed, lead shades pulled over her eyes against her will, and she fell into a brief, fitful sleep plagued with dreams.

" _Mondatta's in danger! Shooter on the roof! I repeat, shooter on the roof!" Lena fled around an HVAC vent and was peppered with concrete pebbles. The concrete dust made her lungs spasm and cough, giving away her position, and she wondered if that shot had been to hit her or just smoke her out. It felt like the second._

" _This is a_ _ **secure**_ _channel._

" _Mondatta's in danger! Get him out of here!"_

" _Identify yourself immed-"_

 _Shots rang out all around Lena - the short range assault rifle form of her opponent's weapon. She lowered herself further to the ground to try to avoid getting shot in the leg or something else important._

 _The distinct_ _ **shh-ching**_ _of a landed grappling hook told her to start moving again, and she popped out, guns ready. No one was there._

" _Shit."_

 _Her racing heart helped time her footsteps and her coordinated blinks, letting the wind blow her in the directions she wanted an extra boost. She had to fight a little harder against headwinds, but it didn't slow her too terribly. More shots, though muffled steered her feet in the right direction._

 _A flash of blue - the shimmer of a purple suit - the gleam of a rifle's barrel in the lamplight on Kings Row. The agile, lithe figure dancing and springing from chimney to rooftop to chimney._

 _Her heart thrummed loudly, now, but for a different reason other than exertion. She wouldn't let her get away this time._

 _Lena followed as quickly as she could and found herself gaining ground behind the elusive Widowmaker. She threw herself full speed toward the next rooftop where Widowmaker looked around to dash away, but there was something wrong - the lag between Widowmaker's actions and inactions, watching Lena too closely, and soon, Lena found out why._

 _A plume of purple smoke filled the air and Lena's lungs, immediately stinging and clouding her judgment, her eyes watered and she skidded across the rooftop, pulling her arms up to protect her head. Her vision had gone blurry and her mind was growing fuzzy. A strong booted foot pinned her arm down, and the cold metal of Widowmaker's rifle pressed against her temple, but she could hardly see Widowmaker for the tears in her eyes._

" _Sweet, foolish girl," Widowmaker purred but she paused, as if she wanted to say more._

 _Lena took advantage of the pause and willed herself back to the exact point where she could change her trajectory and avoid Widowmaker's venom mine._

 _The sensation almost always felt too overwhelming, but she powered through, throwing herself backward and feeling her body strain to stay together, centered on the large point on her chest and all feeling diminishing as it spread further away. Lena focused on that point and pushed herself forward and upward once her vision came back into focus from the Blue Space. Her no-longer spasming lungs sang and she couldn't help but let out an excited noise. Blinking after recalling was so… strangely invigorating. The feeling of nothingness encroaching only to be met with plunging forward at such a speed that it overcame all worry…_

 _She fired a shot to the hot water pipe beside Widowmaker, trying to slow her down, and only barely managed to. But it was enough._

 _Almost automatically, her hand reached back and plucked the pulse bomb from her under-harness, which she pitched toward Widowmaker as hard as she could. She wasn't aiming to_ _ **kill**_ _, but it would slow down her opponent significantly._

 _It blew up in her face. Literally._

 _The heat and scatter of concrete and brick and shingle hit her in a concussive wave that threw her from the roof. By the time she caught her breath, to her horror, Widowmaker was falling with a grin._

 _It all happened so fast…_

 _Lena blinked away as fast as she could and elation settled on her as she saw Widowmaker miss her mark by a mere fraction of a second and she patted her accelerator, almost sure that she should be dead. Only a few feet away, Widowmaker landed with a smug look on her face, her rifle up and away from Lena._

" _Looks like the party's over."_

 _Lena's mind went blank. "No…"_

 _In encroaching panic, she fled to the edge of the building to see masses of people in stunned silence just before an all out mob broke out, people screaming and wailing, chanting and shouting._

" _No, no, NO!" For the briefest second, Lena thought she could kill her former friend. Her former love._

 _She threw herself through spacetime to crash into Widowmaker, and the two rolled and tumbled over rooftops, but Lena couldn't feel anything other than the panicked horror that her generation's revolutionary leader for peace had just been assassinated before her very eyes_ _ **because**_ _of her. She was supposed to_ _ **stop**_ _this._

 _When they landed, Lena straddled Widowmaker, whose head dangled precariously over a building's flat edge. She felt tears biting the corners of her eyes. Her failure too hard to handle. A pointless death caused by her. A pointless death that would hurt millions._

" _Why?" Lena screamed, her voice cracking. She shook Widowmaker's shoulders. "Why would you_ _ **do**_ _this?"_

 _Widowmaker only smiled up at Lena, laughing in cold, mirthless glee. Her eyes flashed in the moonlight and artificial light from below._

 _Lena felt her face twist in disgust and horror and outrage, but a loud wooshing of a small aircraft distracted her momentarily - a nearly fatal moment._

 _Strong, sure hands pulled her jacket down, where her face was only mere millimeters from Widowmaker's, but the scene around them changed and melted away into the warm light of a very familiar apartment. The sheets under Lena's skin were unmistakably silk, and her jacket had transformed into simple underwear, her chest free from her accelerator's burden._

 _Amélie - no longer Widowmaker - looked down on her with honey-golden eyes, her brown skin aglow in the candlelight._

" _Adieu, chérie."_

 _And sharp, ragged pain lanced the very center of Lena's chest. She tried to take a breath, but her lungs failed. Her eyes went wide as she watched the soft angles of Amélie's face grow harsh, her skin blueing right in front of Lena's eyes, but most of all, the pain in her chest - the agony in her chest - grew and grew._

 _She looked down and saw a handle of a large knife - the knife from the top left of Amélie's butcher block - protruding from her chest._

Lena awoke, patting her chest, breathing hard, and crying a little.

With shaking hands, she slapped the nightstand beside her until her phone managed to find its way under her fingers. She called up Athena in a stammer.

"Lena? Are you alright?" Athena's voice came from the device before her body appeared. "You're-"

"Athena, I have to go find her. I have to go right now. I have to." The words came out in a rush, too many to be logically sound or very coherent.

"Lena, take a breath. You're suffering from a panic attack. Now is not the best time to make decisions like this." Athena's voice was steady and logical, but warm beyond belief.

Lena shook her head over and over, unable to stop the repetitive movement. "Now. I gotta go now."

Athena fell silent. "Do… you want me to help you find her?"

With tears falling, Lena nodded. Shame was only a minor thing compared to the horrible weight on her chest that she knew she would have to bear in a visible way. And a sudden, horrible, painful realization hit her in the midst of her panic.

 _I don't want to die._

* * *

A time later - not too long - Lena had collected herself from her blubbering panic, but her hands still shook with the slightest tremble. She affixed her harness over a new tanktop, one with the Union Jack spread across the chest over a longer black-and-white striped suit she'd kept in reserve, and a studded jacket. The tacky convict-striped suit, like Hana's pink suit she'd given Lena, had been a gag gift, but Lena was making the best use of everything. She slipped on her only pair of shoes she had and forlornly looked over at her bag. She wasn't set to check out until late afternoon, and it was only three in the morning, but she took her bag anyway, knowing that if it came down to it, she wouldn't be able to come back for it at all.

She couldn't leave her special jewellry in there and then leave it to never return.

Athena had triangulated a large group of refugees in Kings Row that Lena figured she could at least go and ask some questions. If anything, that's where anyone running from an organization - or the law - could end up and blend in well.

She took off in the night, only gaining attention from a few less fortunate wandering and looking for a warm place to go out of the snow piles and damp areas under awnings. As she passed from street to street, it became clear and more obvious she was entering into the area called Kings Row. It was only a subsection in London, a locally prescribed thing, but it had gained popularity as a bad area since the death of Mondatta. Streets became more uneven and dilapidated like the buildings slumping on either side. Street lights flickered more than burned, bathing the streets in an eerie, faltering, orange-ish glow.

Worst of all to Lena, she remembered going to the pubs in Kings Row with all of her mates from the academy and drinking with them, having fun and enjoying life despite being underage. Now, those places of community were boarded up and painted over with slurs and hate for the occupants of the area. She winced and turned away from a particularly grotesque poster showing a flesh-man ripping out the insides of an omnic with the slogan "Tear out their wires like they tear out our souls."

Lena flitted down the streets more than wandered, being too keenly aware of the passing time and eager to separate herself from the barrier streets that had so much hate scrawled on the walls. The snow crunched under foot and her heart raced faster than her feet were able to fly. Her breath caught as she turned a corner and felt eyes upon her. Skidding a little, she turned on her heel and dashed down one side street and almost literally ran into a large, boxy metal thing. She stumbled and subsequently ate shit, falling face first onto the asphalt and listening to very distressed beeping mixed with the twittering of a very grumpy bird.

"Deedeedeedee bworp" bopped the box, but it was no box.

Lena, her mind stretching, realized she could, in part, understand the thing. She looked up, wiping her face, which bled from her nose and a scrape on her cheek. "You just…" Her breath caught and her hand went to her blaster, but she was met with more distressed beeping.

"You're… a bastion unit…"

"Dweetdoweet" it said as it extended a hand toward her.

Lena frowned at the hand but took it suspiciously. The bastion unit helped her to her feet and made sure she was dusted off. From a small compartment, the bastion withdrew a small handkerchief which they handed to Lena with a small bounce in their knees. Lena accepted it just as cautiously and wiped her cheek.

"Thanks."

"Doweedoo."

She couldn't resist the question. "What are you doing here? Aren't you far from home?"

The bastion unit started down the street, motioning with their self repair tool for Lena to follow. Bastion turned their head to the side, blue eye glowing. "Heeeoop?"

 _Aren't you?_

She blushed. It had been a while since she spoke with a system with a primitive communication unit, and she was a little rusty.

"Got me there." She frowned and followed.

After a time, her question burst from her lips, an overextended bubble whose tension just popped. "Hey, do you know where the refugee camp is? I have a friend that might be with you."

Bastion turned a corner and Lena quickened her pace to catch up in the dark. "Heeoowee," they said matter of factly.

Amélie.

Lena swallowed, her heart pounding in her ears and threatening to batter its way from her chest. "Where is she."

The bastion unit shrugged. "Doowoo"

"You don't _know_?"

Bastion twisted their torso and head side to side in a negative. They bwopped out some more words Lena had to decipher, but she nodded slowly. She was on a supply run. Lena should wait at camp.

She said no.

The exchange was rather brief, but it was enough for Lena to get a grasp on how safe the bastion unit was - the verdict: very safe. The way they insisted on Lena staying safe made her smile, but she wasn't about to let a mother hen tell her to not look for the woman she'd come so far for. She walked with them through the camp, of which she'd just found the skirts, and told Bastion about the children before leaving to go to the supply cache where Amélie went only an hour before. Bastion listened patiently and nodded but warned Lena about Amélie acting strange lately.

They beeped out one word that chilled Lena even more. "Weewoohoohoo."

 _Widowmaker…_

Lena could only nod before fleeing into the darkness before dawn.

Most times, Lena found herself in the middle of trouble, not necessarily _seeking_ it but definitely falling into it without realizing. It had gotten her far in life - trespassing into the Overwatch hangars, getting recognized by Overwatch and hired, and now, except this time she _was_ seeking trouble and danger.

She figured that, given the pitch with which things seemed to be unfolding, she would most readily and effectively find Amélie - Widowmaker - or whatever she was in between - in the middle of trouble. And she was exactly right.

The racket gave Lena first indication that something was amiss. There was a crash and a yell or three - all of which were from deep, rough voices - before the distinct rattling of assault rifles made Lena almost fling herself in the direction of the noise. But she realized that she would probably be safest by skirting around and _not_ throwing herself in the middle of the line of fire. Flanking would probably be best.

She trotted down the length of two buildings and skirted around the edge to see six black-clad figures standing, weapons raised. Something was different about the way these men stood compared to the ones she'd taken down only yesterday. There was hesitation in the men from before but these… These men were the ones with rigidity in their eyes and heart that wouldn't falter no matter the challenge facing them. These were the hand-picked. These were the heavy bred and groomed for fighting and fighting alone. She wouldn't call them mindless. She wouldn't call them unthinking.

Lena thought them dangerous killers, and rightly so.

In the middle of this semicircle they'd created stood a woman, bent at the waist, clutching her arm with a grimace of lions. Her blue flesh contrasted the white snow and the black suits of the Talon agents. Too bright blood dripped onto the ground in her muddled, streetlight-cast shadow. Her eyes were hard and fearsome, but not the level of an assassin. Hard, but not cruel.

"Amélie," Lena breathed, too loud to not be heard.

Lena's body tensed as soon as she saw men moving, and her arms pulled up almost on their own, which was more than a little lucky. Brick dust plumed up like smoke and a chunk of brick slapped her across the face, making her cheek sting. She took the moment of confusion as an opportunity to throw herself far enough to the side to distract and disorient, blinking and trailing blue behind her. She tried to keep away from the direct line of fire where she'd last seen anyone aiming, but it was hard to judge when she was throwing herself through spacetime. Shots rang out, spraying the wall directly behind her, and part of her hoped that no one was in the houses nearby, hoping they were as abandoned as the streets she'd walked down.

Lena reflexively pulled her pistols to a ready position and fired off several shots. Even for her, she was quick to pull back and evade their shots rather than weave, and she saw Amélie sweep through the back line and wrench a weapon from one of the already fallen Talon agents, whirling in a powerful, graceful dervish of her own.

 _How'd she manage to do that?_

There were two fallen agents, from what Lena could see, and she couldn't afford to expend brain cells on piecing together how Amélie - scrawny, battered, and starving Amélie - had managed to take down two fully outfitted Talon agents.

The strange fluttering in her stomach was already hard enough to ignore when she saw Amélie standing there looking grisled and grisly, blood on her face and fevered rage in her eyes.

Three of the men pointed toward Lena, and she felt her eyes go wide as she skidded across the snow. Her shoes weren't exactly equipped to handle this kind of terrain and she ate shit… again… She collided with the snow-powdered concrete, clacking her hands against the ground to keep her from hitting her face again, with an "Oof." But she willed herself - though tired and faded around the edges - backward, feeling the stinging on her elbows and heels of her hands fade into a dull ache as she redirected and veered left, away from the slick spot and away from embarrassing herself even more and eating even _more_ concrete.

Lena threw herself in the air and felt bullets whiz by her as she blinked away and trained her pulse pistols on her target, pulling lightly and downing the man without hesitation.

 _Five._

Lena saw Widowmaker - no, Amélie… no… Someone in between… take out a man with his own gun, jamming the barrel all the way through his skull and kicking him into the river. She shot off a few times, and to Lena's surprise given her lethality only moments before, Amélie missed every shot.

Lena edged around the few, dodging more than shooting, and she backed her way up to Amélie, who stopped her frantic aiming and locked onto Lena, but Lena couldn't afford to take her eyes from the solidly placed Talon agents. They started looking more and more the same every time Lena saw them… The boys - the children - she'd murdered in Australia reflected in the faces of the stone cold killers before her now.

 _How does he keep getting them when they're so young?_

But the thought dissipated, ashes in the wind, when her hot flesh touched the coldness of Amélie's hand. She hadn't realized that her last blink had thrown her so far, but then again, she'd been trying to get close. Amélie had also moved toward Lena's endpoint, knowing where she would land before even Lena knew for herself.

(shifting to match her movements)

This wasn't the reunion that Lena imagined.

But she hadn't had a reunion fantasized.

She'd had a funeral planned - a mourning process already aligned.

"Fancy meeting you here," she found herself saying to try to lighten the tension.

(but oh, _GOD_ , Amélie was so close to her)

"Chérie, you're supposed to be very far from me." The words weren't nearly as flat as Lena had anticipated and instead bloomed with warmth and humor. Her eyes though… Her eyes remained flat and as shining as obsidian.

Lena spared another glance to the side and shivered at the blood and gore marring Amélie's gaunt features, splattering her in a fearsome war paint of unknowable patterns that called for eldritch gods to help her in her battles.

The men steadied themselves and reformed to best tackle two opponents, shifting into a wider arc around the two women.

Lena pushed herself back into Amélie

(her hand was so cold)

and whispered, "So how's about that dance, love?"

From the corner of her eye, she could see Amélie - Widowmaker - _someone_ \- smile wickedly as Amélie spoke. "It would be my _pleasure_."

Lena wanted to give Amélie that pleasure, and she smiled back.

She knew as well as Amélie that the Talon agents would wait for the two of them to attack, shutting down movement before giving away their own. They would wait as long as it took to draw out an indicator - a hair's breadth of tension in a muscle - to attack.

Lena and Amélie didn't give them much to wait for.

Amélie tossed something high in the sky with a metallic clink and grabbed Lena, yanking them upward and in a spiraling ascent. Lena held on to Amélie's bony waist with one arm and fired with the other, sending up peppering sprays of pebbles, concrete, and extra miscellaneous material flying up in a whirl. She thought she hit one or two in a nonlethal area, but Amélie's strikes, when she made them, were lethal and morbidly comedic. Two Talon agents' heads exploded like watermelons under high pressure, and the others fired.

 _Three? Already?_

Footsteps echoed down a street as the two zipped upward even more, and Lena could see ten more men rushing to aid their comrades. Before she could contemplate how their patches looked different on their left shoulders - white masks instead of red lines, Amélie jerked her forward and over a balcony where she fired off another three shots, two of which hit their mark with startling accuracy.

The last man from the original crew fell in with the ranks of the ten.

"We descend or we run. Your call, chérie."

Feeling a little too on fire to stop, Lena smiled back at Amélie in a way she hadn't since Heerenveen. She clicked the tiny switch on the back of her chronal accelerator and started the count for her pulse bomb.

"Let's give them hell."

Amélie smiled back with Widowmaker's feline grin, and she lept off the balcony and directly onto the shoulders of a startled agent. Lena watched in awe as Amélie snapped the man's neck and threw herself from his shoulders to swing around the neck of another, breaking his head nearly clean off, and landing with her rifle and feet on another's chest, sending four bullets into it with deadly grace without ever touching the ground.

 _Eight. Better get moving_.

Lena perched on the balcony's railing and descended with less grace than Amélie, stumbling into a roll and coming up with her pistols blazing and sending down one man. She pushed herself off another and backed into Amélie again, popping off shots to her direct left and right, injuring one agent and downing another. She tried not to look at their faces.

Amélie, evidently, had had less luck after the first three, and fired short range attacks at one coming up on their left, but Lena was the one to get his hot blood sprayed in her face as she sent him down. Nervousness seized her as she mentally equated it to a shower.

 _Six_.

Lena and Amélie swirled - black and white stripes on one side of the coin and muted purples and greys on the other - and fired at their opponents, but Amélie swore in French only moments after Lena downed the left man. _Out of ammo_. Amélie used her empty, useless weapon to pull in one agent by surprise and bash her head against his nose, temporarily rendering him unconscious until she brought her booted foot and rifle butt down on his temple, crushing the man's skull like a dull knife through frozen butter. She tossed aside the weapon and put up her fists as if to fight them all off with just her willpower and an angry glare, but Lena, between shots, pushed one of her pistols into Amélie's empty hand.

 _Five_.

Amélie blinked and ducked, barely missing a blow dealt by the last remaining of the original crew of agents.

"I trust you." A shot directed at them tore each other apart. "Now, _go_."

Amélie and Lena started making their retreat, as Lena wanted, and drew the agents further and further into the bottleneck of abandoned buildings on salted streets. Lena heard the telltale _ping_ of her harness telling her that her pulse bomb was ready, and she pushed Amélie back, further down the avenue. She flung the thing toward the bottlenecked soldiers and blinked her ass out, hearing a _beep beep beepbeepbeepbeepbeep_

 _ **BOOM**_

Lena caught Amélie and shielded Amélie's frail body with her own, knowing that her jacket was torn to shreds and feeling the shrapnel cut through her back.

No one moved for a time except for the coughing of both Amélie and Lena from the dust kicked up by the pulse bomb.

"Don't look," she whispered to Amélie, her voice ragged and tired. "It's better if you don't. Let's just…"

"Run," Amélie coughed in agreement.

But Lena realized where she was in that moment and how she was positioned and, most importantly, _who_ was in her arms.

The fight had been blurs of movement and adrenaline - even first seeing Amélie standing there bloodied and bruised - but it hadn't particularly registered for Lena what that _meant_.

 _She's here… with me…_

But then, the smell hit Lena. The smell that hit her in Heerenveen and every other time she'd hit anyone with her pulse bomb - the smell of intestine, the smell of bile, the smell of blood and shit and horrible realization that at _least_ three bodies were entangled and mangled and blown to hell.

"Let's go," Lena urged, and this time Amélie started moving but it was more labored than even Lena's.

They started trotting - the very best they could do in this situation - and ran into another wall of troops, only five on two sides, but it was still more than enough. Lena heard Amélie's shaking breath behind her and winced. She didn't know how much more she had in herself.

But…

That's when a strange, metallic "Dootdootdodootdoodooo!" came sounding through the alleyways followed by yells and screeches from all metallic and human sorts.

Lena started smiling as the Talon agents began losing their nerve.

 _Maybe we'll make it out of this place after all._


	46. We Don't Believe What's On TV

Hana rummaged through one of the boxes she'd carried with her and suddenly became very grateful for the few extra days everyone had procrastinated to go to Brazil. Lúcio had practically begged the group to postpone, getting Satya where he needed her took longer than even he had expected, but they'd managed to get everyone set up in time to ensure that Hana would have a backup mech at her beck and call in case things went from bad to worse. The only thing was that this mech - a new mech - would be bright yellow. She'd convinced Torb to shake the lead of out of his britches and paint yellow stripes on it. She'd planned meticulously and packed another yellow suit with black stripes in it _and_ a matching bee-chain (bee keychain).

If she was going to broadcast her brand, you could damn well bet that it was going to match toe to tip. This one's just like B. va. She started smiling at herself like the pleased jackass that she was.

Her smile persisted as she heard Lúcio approach, his metal legs swishing with every step, but her smile only grew as he slipped an arm around her waist and propped his head on her shoulder. Their heights weren't that different. Satya was much taller than either of them.

"Tudo bem?"

Hana wrinkled her nose, trying to make her tongue roll with the casual grace of his own. "Tudo bem."

Lúcio kissed her bare shoulder, his smile on her skin making her blush. "Your accent is getting better. Soon, you'll be speaking Portuguese in no time!"

"Lulu, I'm already tri-lingual and do most of my own voiceovers and translations for movies and scripts." She reached down and squeezed his hand.

He was _there_ with _her_.

He was warm and real and very, very present.

No screen separated them.

No muffled voices from microphones.

No static. No overload. No lag.

Just warmth. Just solidity. Just sensory wonder.

"Satya's crew should be arriving tonight, you know."

Hana swallowed, and she knew that he could feel her heart beat fast. It would be her first time meeting Satya in the flesh, and all she knew was that she was tall and lovely and her girlfriend.

"We could… I don't know… You know my headquarters has a lot more privacy…"

Hana flushed and suddenly felt a little sick. "I don't-"

Lúcio nodded before she had to say anything else and just squeezed her tight. "That's okay."

The smile she had faded into her chewing on her lower lip, the fingers that had touched Lúcio's so lightly started drumming an anxious beat. She knew that she'd discussed it with him at length, but not in person. There was something very different about that.

"What if I don't ever?"

Lúcio shrugged. "The lower half of my body doesn't _work_ , Hana."

She turned and looked him dead in his beautiful, warm eyes. "Angela can help, Lúcio. She can't… fix it… but she can give you something else…"

Lúcio shrugged again, but his eyes slid away from hers and onto the box lid before Hana. "I'm stubborn, you know that."

He loosened his grip on her waist and backed up a pace to let her continue working on whatever she'd been doing, which was pulling out the last file she'd found with an encryption on it. She slid it back into the box and turned to face him.

"I don't think it's that."

He wouldn't look at her and his posture changed to where his shoulders - usually held back in a semi-haughty yet humble way - curved inward, and his eyes told a whole story separate from his posture. "No, it isn't."

Hana leaned back on her little plastic table, propped up by the heels of her hands. "What is it, then?"

He laughed uncomfortably and looked toward the door, as if wanting someone to walk through them and save him from this conversation. "Hana, I'm…"

Hana heard footsteps the second that Lúcio opened her mouth, and Angela Ziegler walked into the room to which Hana groaned.

"Hana-" Angela started.

"Nope, no, nuh-uh. NO way. Angela stop there." She pointed at Lúcio. "Why won't you let Angela set you up some new legs? A new spine?"

Angela looked up from her lightweight cell phone and blinked a few times. Her eyes were glassy but not in a way that would indicate crying. Was Angela drinking again?

"Listen, buddy. I'm here for ssssomething…" Angela frowned and Hana turned her full attention toward the frustrated, ruddy cheeked Angela.

Lúcio frowned even more deeply than Angela. "Dr. Ziegler, are you feeling okay?"

She turned with a squint and pointed an accusatory finger at him. "Don't you ' _Doctor Ziegler_ ' me, kid. I'm here for _you_. Your leggies. Legs."

Hana pinched her nose with exasperation and pity. "Angela, you're drunk."

"Listen, what are you _worried_ about, Lúcio? What are you worried about? I make gre _at_ legs. Just look at Genji!"

Lúcio started chewing on his lips, and Hana's tightly folded arms crossed a little more as Angela leaned against the same table as Hana. "I know it's weird to talk about it with your like… _mom_ , but I am so here for you. I'm the cool mom. Fareeha's the rule mom."

Lúcio and Hana swapped a quick glance that made Hana feel a little more at ease. She _almost_ smiled.

"Lúcio, Lúcio, Lúcio… I've got all the kinks worked out of these legs I designed. All we gotta do is just…" She made scissors motions with her fingers and went "snip snip" for added effect. "Snippy snip snip that pelvis right off and put on a new pair of pants."

"Dr. Zieg- Angela, I…"

"Wait, wait. Lemme finish. Listen, I _know_ had a bug with Genji's body, but like… I can give you an ass that won't quit. Hana would like that I'm _sure_." Angela leaned over at Hana and gave her an exaggerated wink.

Hana's face, she knew, turned bright red. Maybe even shades of purple.

"And if it's that little problem that Genji had… you know… with the uncontrollable eight hour long orgasm that put him in the hospital…"

Hana felt her jaw drop and her heart stutter. This was _way_ more than she ever needed to know about anything ever. She tried to put her hands up to stop feeling the radiating second hand embarrassment from Angela's exuding cluelessness but to no avail.

"Listen. I fixed that. I fixed it real good." She paused, putting a finger to her lips, and Hana (and Lúcio, too) couldn't seize the opportunity to make her stop for the shock of this entire conversation. "I fixed it super duper good. _**And**_ now I have like… eight different sized models to choose from. Like… The retractable thing is a little weird at first, but it's kinda hot."

Hana kicked into gear real quick then. "Angela, he still has his _legs_. His _spine_ is the problem."

Angela sat there, completely glazed over for a moment. "Oh. Right. That's a bummer."

Hana and Lúcio both stood silent as statues for a time before Hana caught Lúcio forcing down a wide smile and probably a laugh. Definitely a laugh. Poorly disguised as a cough.

"I can still fix that. That's easier than making new leggies." Angela yawned and gently papped her own forehead with her clipboard. "I need to find Fareeha."

Hana gestured toward the door. "Go ahead. Can you find her like this?"

"I'm only a _little_ drunk, thank you." With that, she tottered away. She didn't even say bye.

Hana stood there looking at the open tent flap for a time before looking at Lúcio with a small smile. "Doesn't look like you'll have to suffer not having the lower half of your body soon."

Lúcio winked at her, and she felt warm fireflies bumping around in her stomach and wondered if she was glowing as brightly as the thought she might be. "For now, though, my hands still work just fine."

"And your jaw isn't broken."

The realization of her words only dawned on her when Lúcio's eyes grew wide and mischievous. She could tell _he_ was blushing and thought _she'd_ burn up into a crisp. Her hands felt cold on her burning face as she covered her splotchy blush with nervous hands, and the telltale _swish swish_ of Lúcio's robotic legs signaled him drawing near even before she could feel him close to her. His strong, warm hands pulled her small cold ones away from her cheeks and eyes and to his mouth where he kissed every knuckle.

"You know you're under no obligation," he whispered.

Hana nodded, not trusting herself to speak any coherent words. After a minute of watching him, though, she _did_ trust herself enough to ask a question. "Out of all the girls and guys in the world, why me? A neither? Someone who doesn't even care about having a physical relationship? It isn't like I'm… against it. I just don't care. But why me?"

Hana's heart thudded and skipped a little and her insides felt gelatinous and weak as Lúcio looked up at her with his brown eyes that caught the light so nicely. Against her fingers, he spoke softly but with the most gravitas she'd seen from him. "Because you're you."

Seconds ticked by with almost audible passing before Hana nodded and looked away, feeling the shame and embarrassment return in full force. She opened her mouth to speak a few times before managing to stammer out her next question. They wouldn't have to do anything but… she could… give it a whirl and see if she was any more interested this time. "Can we go to your tent? You know… Before Satya gets here."

It was Lúcio's turn to blush.

* * *

Hana found herself avoiding eye contact after her time with Lúcio, thinking that people might be able to read her expression too easily. She'd been into it while they'd been up to The Business, but she found herself back in the same position as before. She supposed, though, that it wouldn't hurt to roll around every once in awhile especially when Angela gave him implants. Most of all, she just wanted him to be happy, and apparently that made him _very_ happy. She wouldn't any more than she felt like she could, but… She loved him.

She held tightly onto his hand and walked out to join the other team members emerging from their slumber and Business of their own, wishing she'd worn shoes that weren't white. Her clothes - casual ones anyway - were mostly what she wore for her Image, but she didn't mind it so much. She'd become her own advocate and manager specifically to control her image so no one else would do it for her.

Lúcio's tent was closest to the center as they could get it without being conspicuously trying to keep their prize fighter alive, but the real center was the communication and planning tent, which was where they were heading.

Over the tents, though, Hana could see swiftly approaching white vans. Her stomach rolled with anticipation and probably too many post-sex gummy bears.

They, like a grumpy looking Angela and a smiling Fareeha, entered into the conference tent wordlessly. Angela rubbed at her eyes petulantly and nursed on a seltzer water while Fareeha and Genji chatted. Jack and Jesse stood behind Reinhardt who bore a smug looking Ana on his lap. Hana quickly averted her eyes from that one. Zenyatta sat talking to Winston and Torb about something… The team felt so small with three of the members missing.

All of them fell silent and swiveled as the flap to the tent brushed open once again. Hana swallowed and found her eyes hurting from the little bit of strain from not blinking enough. She was glad she didn't, though.

Long brown fingers flashed before a sharp angled face peeked around the tent flap. Her face darkened in a blush before the rest of her came into view - tall and willowy and regal. Satya Vaswani took a step, and Hana found herself standing beside Lúcio who had popped up out of his own seat just as quickly.

Her hair was loose, something that Hana hadn't anticipated, and fell over her shoulders. Her expression was more than a little pinched, but right away, Hana could tell that it was just her nervousness. Satya wasn't very good at covering her feelings.

For what felt like an eternity but Hana knew was only a brief moment, Hana debated on running up to Satya and throwing her arms around the tall woman, but she decided against it in case it would upset her sense of control in an unfamiliar environment. Lúcio seemed to be thinking about the same thing and squeezed Hana's fingers rather hard.

"Hello, all," Satya said with the slight incline of her head.

Angela stood next, wiping off the exhaustion on her face for something more pleasant, and crossed over to shake Satya's hand. "Hello, Satya, I'm glad to finally meet you in person. Welcome to our little group."

Satya's watchful eyes scanned the several in the tent, and she smirked, making Hana's heart go haywire. "It doesn't seem so little to me. I know you're missing a few of your key players, here, but this will do more than perfectly."

She didn't even look Hana and Lúcio's way.

Hana felt her heart sink like a stone in a very cold, very deep lake. Had she done something wrong?

No, she and Lúcio would both be feeling this way…

She forced down her feelings for another time. _That's future me's problem_.

Through the meeting, Hana found herself fidgeting with her phone in her pocket way more than normal, trying to ignore the way Satya brushed her hair out of her face and the way her fingers tapped the table. She turned her attention to Angela's plans, already knowing what she was meant to do - already knowing her place in this game.

She would be one of the ones to drive the force forward. She could already see where they would have gaps because of missing Mei and Zarya, but most of all, she could see all of the attack points that Lena would almost instinctively take.

Angela, much to Hana's distress, didn't leave out any details and took up as much time as humanly possible. She went on at length about the importance of each person's position and _heavily_ encouraged Ana, Satya, and Lúcio to take a position near the rear, but Satya objected politely, pointing out where she thought she could be best. They talked back and forth a bit - no real argument there from Angela - and came to an agreement. Hana would push in followed by Satya and Lúcio, but Lúcio would remain a mobile unit under Hana's care. _No fucking pressure, I guess._ Jack would take after Reinhardt, being covered by his shield enough to withstand heavy fire, and Rein could do plenty of damage on his own, if it came down to it. Genji politely refused to be constrained to a stationary position and took up the weak points that Lena should have had, but Hana didn't say anything.

Within minutes, Angela had reconfigured her map to show small dots with everyone's preferred corresponding colors. Her face was drawn and dark, but Hana wouldn't call her out in the middle of a full room. She was, however, very curious.

They quickly fell into their places on Angela's holographic map - a two pronged attack that would become a pincer movement. One prong comprised of a relatively mobile force that would encircle and push back into the more stationary force. The mobile force was a flexible 5-to-8 person force of Hana, Lúcio, Satya, Genji, Zenyatta, and Jesse as primary components with Winston pushing the edges. Lúcio was a mobile force to go where he was needed most. The stationary force wasn't actually too stationary. Angela and Fareeha promised to be as mobile as possible but hold a point, driving the opponents backward into the mobile force. Rein, Ana, and Torbjorn were the most stationary units they had, and Jack was very versatile. Ana would be roosted, so they would have to protect her the most, but otherwise, everything seemed as smooth as silk.

Except for one little problem. All things considered. Hana hadn't fought any actual battles with the Overwatch crew. She didn't know how they worked. And her biggest concern was that she didn't know how they worked _together_.

At best, she'd found and watched footage, but a visualization was little help when faced with death and destruction.

Angela had recommended that Hana broadcast the fight with Vishkar, and Hana knew that it would take some time to get herself ready for a camera, but she wasn't going to let her only opportunity of an actual fight pass her by. It had been too long.

She'd struggled so much with the concept that she was a child soldier, but she knew that it was for the best. She knew that the people she held most dear back at home wouldn't have chances to go to school and be happy - that they would probably have their lives cut short - if she didn't go out and fight the fight.

She wouldn't call it the good fight. She'd never call any fight a good fight.

War was war.

Some wars were to prevent something bigger.

This was one of those times.

After the too long meeting came to a close, Hana stood from her plastic chair and stretched. Lúcio stood a moment later, and it finally occurred to Hana that he wasn't in his wheelchair.

"Hey, why are you in your legs?" Hana asked as everyone graciously met Satya before giving her the space she seemed to need. Lúcio and Hana held back.

Lúcio looked away from Hana with a blush mounting on his cheeks. "Well… uh… first impressions, you know?" He smiled but it was a shy one.

Hana smiled and pushed her bangs to the side. "Yeah, I know, but you've been around her more than once. Like… physically in the same room." She shook her head, but she understood. This… felt much more official. "Why do you think I'm dressed like this?"

Lúcio blinked. "That's… how you always dress?"

Hana gently punched his tattooed shoulder. "Yeah, stupid. That's what I'm saying."

Lúcio rubbed at his neck with a sheepish grin the warmth of sunshine. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

The two lapsed into comfortable yet anxious silence as everyone else filed out of the tent with a glance cast toward them every once in awhile, but Hana didn't let it bother her too much. She absently checked her phone, hoping for a message from Lena, but there was nothing there. Just a simple screen with the time and date.

When she looked up, her heart lept into her throat as she saw Satya walking straight toward the two of them.

"UH." Hana said cleverly.

Satya's placidly neutral face cracked into a soft smile. "Hello."

"Hey!" Lúcio grinned wide and elbowed Hana with a little goading that Hana read more as _See? I told you it wouldn't be so bad_.

The milliseconds ticked by with horrendous agony before Hana started getting squirmy. "Is there any way we can like… go back to Lúcio's tent? I don't think the conference room is a great place to finally say hey to each other."

Lúcio nodded vigorously, but Satya hesitated, making Hana wonder what she said wrong.

"Just to talk, right?" Her eyes wouldn't meet Hana's or Lúcio's.

Hana started laughing, but it sounded nervous to her own ears and probably a little on edge. "Of course." She snorted an anxious little snort before asking, "So like… is this when people hug or what? I'm not well versed in actually dealing with people. I just yell at screens a lot."

It was Lúcio's turn to playfully roll his eyes. "Just come on. My back is getting tired of my exoskeleton."

Hana followed the two of them and felt the chill of familiar insecurity wrap around her like a security blanket that held fast no matter how hard she tried to shrug it off. Her teeth found her lip, not for the first time that night, and the taste of blood spread its metallic sheen on her throat and tongue. Without thinking, she spat on the heavily trodden dirt path and earned a frown from Satya, who immediately softened upon her eyes drawing to Hana's lip. But… She quickly looked away.

 _You're not enough, and you never will be._

Hana pushed the thought aside with a little more effort than she would have liked. _I'm fine and they like me just like this, thank you very much._

Still, there was something about it that felt… off.

She tried to think back to things she'd potentially done to put Satya off, but came up empty.

As she followed Lúcio into the tent, she realized that Satya's shoulders relaxed and her furtive glances became much more comfortable and steady.

"It's… better here," Satya said quietly.

"Better?"

She nodded and looked up graciously at Lúcio who offered her a bean bag chair before sitting daintily. "So many people… it wears me out, honestly."

Her smile was thin and tired, but Hana was more than a little glad to see it. "Yeah, well, better get used to our ugly mugs. You're gonna be seeing a lot of me and Lu."

Satya offered both of her hands from her seated position. Hana went to her before Lúcio, who was switching from his exoskeleton to his chair rather hastily, but he joined shortly after Hana sat beside the tall woman.

"I don't mind the two of you…" Her eyes slid away from Hana's and her face darkened with another blush.

"Who would have thought that our girlfriend doesn't mind us?" But Hana couldn't keep the smile off her face, much less out of her voice.

That word, Hana realized, hadn't passed between them more than once, and the very blood in her veins iced over.

"Well… Yes… I suppose so." This time it was Satya who couldn't help smiling her blinding smile - not a small thing that seemed nervous but a full blown smile.

Those lovely smiles - _Satya's_ gorgeous grace and Lúcio's puppy dog grin - forced the insecurity growing within Hana into submission. She didn't mind one bit as the night grew long around them, filling their tent's air with stories and laughter and their own ever-closening bond.


	47. Handclap

"H'okay, so…" Hana squeezed herself into her combat suit and talked to Satya from behind the privacy screen. She, Lúcio, and Satya were all sharing a tent for a lot of reasons, but most importantly than any other reason, there simply wasn't enough room for thirteen extra people in Lúcio's rebel camp. They had to break today, or rations would begin running shorter than planned. Hana smiled to herself as she pulled on her gloves. She rather liked the way it felt when she put on her suit. It made her feel like she was _doing_ something.

"Are you doing to finish that thought?" Hana could just _hear_ the smile in Satya's voice.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm just thinking."

Her insides felt jittery and mushy all at the same time, making it difficult for her to think.

"I'm gonna stream this. I haven't streamed in ages. This is gonna… This is gonna be so big, Satya."

The pause from the other side of the divider made Hana nervous, and she turned to scoot out into the open room to find Satya standing there with Hana's headset in her hands. The butterflies in Hana's stomach fluttered and swarmed again as her fingers brushed Satya's skin.

"Are you saying it's… been a while?" Hana's heart flipped, and she was glad that Satya wasn't looking directly at her.

Hana couldn't help the little anxious laugh that escaped her and brushed it off simply as a case of nerves before a stream, but she knew deep down it was because of the pleasant tension she felt around Lúcio and Satya. They didn't feel strange around one another, though. It was more of an electric cloud surrounded them that made them all smile and blush and look away while still falling together and talking about the world and life and the stars.

Satya reached out, making Hana's heart start acting like those jumping beans she'd seen in novelty shops, and brushed a mussed hair from Hana's face.

"You're going to be great, Hana." Satya smiled, her eyes darting away with a spreading blush on her cheeks. "I know you're going to do great things today."

Hana, against her screeching and siren blaring brain's wishes, pulled Satya's withdrawing hand away and placed a gentle kiss on her palm's hard light stabilizer. "With you and Lúcio watching my back, how can I not?"

The _swish swish_ of Lúcio's approach made Hana look up, one of her hands still holding Satya's.

"Oh, hey, am I missing a kiss sesh?" His eyes twinkled in the sunlight streaming through the open tent flap.

"In your dreams maybe," Hana quipped before pulling away from Satya to plant a kiss on Lúcio's sun-warmed cheek. "Are we ready to rock?"

Lúcio nodded, waving over Satya with an infectious grin. "And roll."

With that, the three walked into the blinding sunlight, hand in hand in hand, and out onto a terrifying stage.

* * *

"Hey, everyone! I know it's been a really fucking long time since my last stream, but I promise this one will be well worth it. We're going to fuck up a pretty shitty organization and really stick it to Vishkar." Hana put a finger to her lips in faux contemplation. "Will I get fined for slandering that company name? Probably." She smiled into her camera before looking out of the domed glass of her entry hole. "Just a friendly reminder that all donations from today go to rebuilding, restructuring, and providing aid and relief for the people affected by Vishkar in Brazil! It seems like a big project, but I know for _sure_ that we'll be able to make a difference for these people."

She looked back out of her safe little cabin and held back a frown. Jesse and Jack seemed to be arguing, so she quickly turned the camera away from the two to focus on Angela and Fareeha in their full outfits. "Ang, Fareeha! Say hi to the viewers!"

Angela rolled her eyes and waved with an award-winning smile while Fareeha saluted.

" _Hana, must you_ _ **really**_ _get all of us in the shot? We're kind of vigilante fugitives…_ "

Hana laughed. "Ah, come on, Ang. You know as well as I do that celebrity endorsement makes the good, good money."

Hana pulled back on the controls to waddle off toward the still fuming Jack and Jesse. "What's up, guys?"

" _Hana, do you mind?_ "

"Nope."

Jack sighed and slapped his forehead, but Jesse grinned. " _Gosh, darlin', are you gonna give me a ration of shit on a livestream?_ "

Hana played up to the camera and giggled. It was a little scary, even to her, how easily and naturally it came to her. "You can bet your best boots on it, cowboy."

" _Oh, Hana_ -"

Hana spun her meka around to find Zenyatta floating there as he always did. "What's up, Z-man?"

" _Should I do something special for the stream? Would it help for me to perform in a certain way? I forgot to ask you before you disappeared with_ -"

"aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" Hana interrupted as sweatily as humanly possible. She didn't want to break the illusion of availability to her fans. It would cut down on her donations by… a lot. "ZenYAttA, yoU'RE f _ine_ ," she found herself wheezing.

Zenyatta tilted his head. " _Ah, I seem to have come across a faux-pas in your streamer culture. My apologies_."

" _you're good…._ " She wheezed back.

On the corner of her screen's monitor, she saw responses from so many of her viewers, most of which were "?"

She'd have to fix that later. Right now, she needed to highlight a few more of her friends for max visibility. On her blog, which she'd been updating regularly, she announced having The Classics around, which was very well received to the point of frenzy.

She switched comm channels on her headset and asked, "Ana, Rein, where are you guys?"

The clear, rough voice of Ana Amari answered. " _I don't want in this stream. Everyone thinks I'm dead_."

"Ana, they can hear you."

" _Fuck_."

Reinhardt's laugh rang out through the headset loud enough to hurt Hana's ears. " _We are setting up in the east sector_."

"Oh, boo. You guys were supposed to wait for me! How will I see you now!" She tried to sound playful, but she was too genuinely irritated.

Ana responded, " _If everything goes according to Angela's plan, we'll see you soon. Ana, out_."

The buzzing of the comm line went dead for Ana. She'd probably switched channels to get off the stream's frequency.

"She's not being much of a team player," Hana muttered grumpily.

The quiet ping that announced donations met Hana's ears. The donation wagon was rolling it and ticking up quickly. They were already halfway to their donation goal within a few donations, and Hana intentionally set the bar a little lower than projected need when it came to donations because it made people feel like the goal was more feasible and made them more willing to donate, but it was still alarming how readily people were willing to donate to them.

 _Overwatch used to mean something to these people..._

 _Now… I mean something to them…_

She felt her eyes start getting glassy and she reached for her Required Contracted Mountain Dew and slammed half right then and there.

"Alright, kiddos, let's take the old girl for a spin."

Hana trotted toward her group in her giant pink robot and formed up, taking the point. Lúcio swished up beside her followed by the others in her group, and her heart pounded as she turned back to everyone behind her and waved for the camera. Everyone followed suit, but the only one who made it look natural was Lúcio. She didn't quite feel like her role clicked as easily as she was forcing it to, but she did her best to stuff down her _actual_ feelings for the camera.

A thought kept drifting back into her mind, though, pulling her attention away from her softly pinging screen and the brightness mixed with poverty in Rio. _Lena would be great here…_

Jack's voice crackled in her ear, pulling her away from her introspection. " _Let's move_."

 _Here we go, nice and steady._

And she took off into the streets, followed by her friends and loved ones.

" _Oh_ , that looked nasty! Good one Satya!" _Ping_! "Thank you, Alex from Texas for your _charitable_ donation on the behalf of Satya Vaswani. A whopping thousand US dollars!"

Hana's eyes skipped from the screen back to the firefight on the streets. She wasn't really sure why people liked watching actual war and death, but she thought that if she could monetize a niche need, then maybe she could put those funds back into saving the place they were so readily destroying. Would it be justified? No. She knew that. But she was going to do whatever she could to help, and at this moment, Vishkar was more than willing to fire on them and civilians.

That was more than Hana could take.

She leaned her body to the side with the joysticks - an old habit from trying to steer games with her body _and_ her hands - and pressed her index fingers on the red pressure triggers on the bottom sides of her joysticks. Her Meka launched itself in a roaring _woof_ , pinning and instantly killing the Vishkar employee heckling Jesse. The blood and gore from the exploded chest cavity slid off the Meka's exterior with a near comedic _squee_. Something inside Hana squirmed at the noise, but she couldn't tell if it was revelry or disgust. And _that_ was what disgusted her most of all.

She grimaced but tried to play it cool as she whirled around, jamming down the two red buttons on the tops of her controller sticks - primary canon fire. _How can they just keep running at us full on?_

The Vishkar employees and security weren't even trying to do typical urban warfare - no hiding in shelled out buildings, no gas, no… nothing. Barely even a resistance when faced with Hana's team - with a band of former mercenaries and killers and peacekeepers. Everyone she was with - with the exception of Satya, she guessed - was an experienced murderer. Then again - she swung around to confront Lúcio's cry and ripped a lanky Viskhar employee to shreds, only narrowly missing Lúcio, but she'd had plenty of training and he had plenty of trust - Satya had been one of them and killed in her own way.

 _But she got out of it_.

"How you holdin' up, cowboy?"

Jesse crackled in through the comms, getting a surround sound kind of deal in Hana's setup. " _Doin' just fine. I'm ready to get back and get another cigar, though. Dropped mine_."

Fareeha interrupted with a thunderous booming overhead.

" _Son of a_ _ **bitch**_ _,_ " swore Jesse.

" _Keeping the skies clear_ ," replied Fareeha with a smile that even Hana could hear.

The earth trembled beneath Hana's feet, and her heart did an anxious little dance as her friends cried out on their own always-on comms. Concrete splintered beneath their feet and exploded in a spray that Hana could only jet away from in an effort to do minimal damage to her Meka, but then she realized she'd practically abandoned her team, whizzing around to block damage and being mostly successful. Satya swore, and chills broke out over Hana's skin but subsided when she saw the subject of the curse.

Steam sprayed jets out of the cracked concrete, and the Hana's Meka, which was already a little moist from the air conditioner not being able to keep up with the activity and the hot climate, hissed as steam geysered up from beneath her and enveloped her. She jerked her controls backward with a swear of her own to match Satya's. Her counter was pinging like mad with all the donations, which seemed to pick up more and more with every spurt of action.

She spun around to find Zenyatta floating and thrusting his orbs at every person he could manage, only occasionally taking a moment to recompose himself, and then going back to flinging the orbs that typically stayed fastened to his belt except in meditation at the head of every Vishkar employee and guard. Hana found herself very glad to be on Zenyatta's side rather than facing off against him. _No one will notice if there's no one to notice_.

The Vishkar personnel were equipped with photon projectors like Satya's but none would connect nearly as readily, but then again, that was probably just Satya's aptitude with anything she put time into.

Hana couldn't see Genji anywhere, but he must have been doing _something..._ _somewhere_...

Before she could realize what was happening, her body lurched forward along with her Meka, and the straps on her chair snatched at her body, sending a searing pain through her left side but keeping her from tumbling into her own windshield. Yelling from all voices came over the comms, and Hana struggled to keep herself from crying out as she moved. Pain flared and sputtered and spread, an inkstain of agony blooming from her left side. She grunted and tried to ignore the concerned messages on the feed she was supposed to be monitoring.

" _Get up, Hana!_ "

" _MOVE."_

She blinked back tears and took control of her joysticks, grimacing and bracing herself for her jets to knock her back fully into her seat. Her windshield and screen flashed a brilliant warning red. The precautionary beeping made her huff, not out of pain though that was there but out of sheer annoyance.

"Come on, baby…" She jerked her controls up and pressed gently on her thrusters to scoop herself out of a crater she didn't even know she was in. The force of the jets pushed her back into her seat a little more uncomfortably than she would have liked, but she had to keep moving.

She swung her rig around to see that everyone appeared to be safe but were scattered.

The earth exploded again - fire stead of steam, and she looked up into the sky. _All clear…?_

Another earth rumbling explosion of fire, concrete, and blood.

"Give me a count," Angela hissed over the line, her voice strained even over the light static.

Everyone sounded off… everyone except…

Hana jerked around frantically, her heart going wild before stopping almost altogether. A few meters away lay an unconscious body… She hoped he was unconscious… "Lúcio!"

Satya was already moving toward Lúcio when Hana called out and started her swift march toward him. "Lu… Lu, please be okay…"

Her Meka froze, her feed stopped running, her donation noises ceased, and her softly hissing communications line went completely dead as a stylized purple skull flashed across the windshield of Hana's exoskeleton in the silence of utter abandonment.

A voice did not crackle over speakers. It filled the Meka's piloting chamber in a resounding, swelling continuity that sounded more like a very loud person was "Hola, cariña. Did you miss me?"

Hana's heart went for another beat, but like taking a step for one more stair that wasn't there, her heart paused followed by a tremendous pound. Everything at once seemed very far away and too close - too hot and too cold. Sweat beaded on her face and neck and, despite the wicking material of her suit, her back. This voice… That symbol…

" _You_ …"

"Yes, yes. This is no time for introductions. I planned on intervening later, but they decided to pull out their big guns," rolled the voice. That was the voice that Lena had spoken to the first time she'd called Hana from Australia. That was the voice that pulled at her mind in stream reels. That was the voice she heard in her nightmares. "You don't have much time, and this hack won't last too long, so listen carefully if you want your pretty boy to live."

Hana couldn't speak.

"Nod if you understand."

Hana jerked her head in an affirmative once.

"Good, now. I'm going to let go of you in ten seconds. I poured a lot of energy into you, so there's not much I can do to keep the mines off of you. Vishkar planted mines in the city's streets to keep this from happening. You need to get to the east side of town as quickly as possible. I'll teleport your boyfriend there. He's fine. Just unconscious." A pause. "Avoid the main street. Blockade to the south. More reinforcements to the north. The west is looping back in on you. Six hundred more from the three hundred you've taken out." Another pause and the skull began to glitch. "Good luck. Be there in ten minutes if you want out of here."

The skull began dissolving. "Oh, yeah. Don't forget to blow your load."

Hana couldn't even laugh for the terror in her heart and clogging her throat.

" _H-n-, d- you read me?_ " Angela. " _Hana, please come in… Please…_ "

There wasn't even the slightest air of formality in Angela's voice at that point. Hana could hear the tears coloring her voice quavering fear.

" _What's wrong with Hana…?_ "

"Power shortage. I'm fine. Had to kick on the backups." The lie came too smoothly to her lips, and she wondered where she'd learned to do it so well. "We need to-" She tried reasserting herself as the point, but watching a slight woman lean over Lúcio turned her tongue to stone. She waved, and then they were gone. " _Move_ …"

" _What about Lúcio?_ "

"He's already out of danger. Called in a favor. Let's get moving."

A pause.

" _Hana, did you just beam him the fuck out of here?_ "

"Basically. Now, let's _move_." She knew her voice was harder than it needed to be, but she really just wanted to move forward and make sure that Lúcio was, in fact, safe.

In a matter of seconds, the group - minus Genji, as usual - managed to round up in a similar formation, this time keeping Satya as mostly protected as they could without Lúcio to boop people away from her. They moved slower without the steady upbeat rhythm that Lúcio had provided and slogged through more people, it seemed. Hana could clearly see the strain beginning to show on everyone's faces - even Zenyatta's immobile one.

 _Reinforcements to the north. The west is looping back on you_.

And that they were. She guessed that about three hundred more people of varying positions were starting to pour in through side streets and main corridors, making her more and more uneasy. They were moving into a section of town where the distinguishment between civilian and enemy was becoming steadily more ambiguous, and she realized that she'd only been in this situation once before back in Korea.

She and her squadron had stumbled into a hostile village with civilian hostages, but the hostages were also omnics. There was almost no telling who was who then.

Hana Song tried not to think about that day.

But… it wasn't too unlike this one.

Rapid fire machinegun rattles broke through the air, and the buzzing sound of photon projectors shook Hana to her core. She found her fingers going numb on her controllers as memory threatened to overtake her and render her incapacitated and _terribly_ inconvenienced.

Instead, she shoved her way forward, throwing up her projected shield to keep off the major sprays from non-energy weapons and gave Jesse some time for sharpshooting. His accuracy, which Hana had never seen in real action, was absolutely terrifying given how many arguments he'd gotten into with Lena. His face was completely blank with the exception of the smallest smile tugging at the corner of his lips with every headshot. Only then did she realize how _dangerous_ Jesse McCree was despite others warning her.

Hana Song felt her face turn red.

It had been a while since the cowboy made her blush, but damn.

Maybe it was just the heat of battle.

Definitely just the heat of battle.

Driving through another group of Vishkar employees, Hana centered her thoughts on performing for the mysterious woman that offered her conditional help. She centered her thoughts on making it through the day, sparing as many as she could while still winning the day. She centered her thoughts on hope. She centered herself on saving Lúcio and Satya and her _family_.

She fired and turned and blasted away, jumping and shooting off into the crowds, corralling them as best as she could while keeping an eye out for the ambiguous civilians, but even then, some of them were firing on her. Maybe they were just off duty employees… An announcement had been sent out beforehand to evacuate these portions of the city, but… now Hana couldn't be so sure. She'd been largely cut off from her team in her desperate rage and her Meka's health bar was steadily lowering.

 _They're all acting individually instead of as a group..._

Despite her uncertainty, she slipped back into her role as a pop culture icon. "Push them toward me! I have an idea!"

" _I have a bad feeling about this, Hana._ "

"It's fine, Ang. Promise." She gave a pause to give a little break between a general conversation. "Hey, gang, are feeling confident enough yet?"

" _Shield generator online! You're good to go, Hana!_ "

" _It is time to proceed without fear._ "

A chilling laugh sizzled over the communications line. " _You know what time it is._ "

"Three!" Her heart raced.

"Two!" She shifted her grip on her controllers, entering the code to unlock vocal command.

"One!" The lock unclicked and her hand rested on the pull cord for ejection.

 _Ding!_

"Activating Self-Destruct Sequence!"

Hana pulled on the lever to eject herself and flew out of the Meka by a force she hadn't experienced in a very long time. Her stomach lurched and she almost missed her landing entirely, _nearly_ landing squarely on her ass and looking very much like a fool in front of millions of viewers. Fortunately, the ejection threw her far enough back to ensure that she didn't end up on the wrong end of her own blast. Instead, it landed her more or less directly in the energy field Zenyatta put off that restored all forms of armor and minor status ailments through sheer electromagnetism. Angela once explained it to Hana how Zenyatta could throw up at electromagnetic field that wouldn't disrupt electronic workings but instead not only enhance them but would also stimulate each person's electromagnetic field and therefore healing process while simultaneously deflecting anything harmful. Hana didn't fully understand it herself, and she boiled it down to - The Shiny Man Puts Off A Big Weird Glow And Makes Us All Feel Better.

Within a matter of three seconds, some of the Vishkar employees figured out that the Meka was gonna blow. The giddiness Hana herself felt began to melt away as she saw the crowd she'd ejected herself from, though. It melted from giddiness of a performer on stage after a long absence into a deeply rooted horror that made her cover her own mouth in an attempt not to shriek out for everyone to get away from what she'd just done.

The sight of it hit her first - watching the Meka shoot yellows and blues of sheer electricity and arcing spark.

The sound hit her next - not even remotely muffled by the humming buzz of Zen's healing aura: a loud hissing and shrieking of imploding metal.

The heat…

The heat acted as the molten poker by which the entire image was forever branded into her mind.

She wish she hadn't seen it, but through the yellow glow of Zenyatta's electromagnetic healing aura, she saw her shuddering pink Meka decimate at least fifty people to the point where their bodies were only ash stirred in the hazy, filthy, bloodsoaked air. Wind scattered their ashes, and Hana's stomach dropped. This wasn't anything like the times she'd used it in her own battles. This was… This was something else.

" _I'll be sure to give all of your… extras a little more kick_." _The man she trusted so little laughed a jovial little laugh, and Hana could almost forget how terribly racist and deadbeat a dad he was. Almost._

…

" _A little more kick."_

"No…" Hana whispered, but that didn't make it so.

A hand on her shoulder sent a jolt through her heart as she nearly knocked out a pale faced Jesse McCree. His eyes were wide and still locked on the position of the now wailing crowd. The screams… Oh… The screams…

Suddenly she was sixteen and in her first Meka as a part of her special unit, clad in a black catsuit with yellow piping and piloting an all black Meka with yellow joints. Her country's flag was stitched uncomfortably onto the place where she now had her signature rabbit.

Fires.

Screaming.

She was there to help but…

She just ended up making it so much worse…

Crackling voices in her ear tore her away from her thoughts and threw her back into another battle with seemingly endless screams hanging in the air.

" _Hana, the teleport!_ "

" _Call the damn thing down before you get blasted out there, kid!_ "

Her mouth moved but out of its own volition rather than anything she actively willed, as she spoke into her wrist to start of a voice activated command. "All systems buzzing."

And from the sky fell a great few chunks of brilliantly yellow metal, cracking the concrete below it as if it were eggshell. She put her hands out reflexively, feeling the metal unfurling beneath her and scooping her up into a new seat for a new Meka. She closed her eyes as she always did just before a tremendous tremor shuddered the whole of her Meka as the windshield and top half of the new exoskeleton slammed down and finished off the design. Within half a second, the windshield lit up in the style of her screen, and her dashboard illuminated her face in front of a new camera. She couldn't even make a quip to her stunned audience to rake in money. She could barely think about anything at that moment other than the sheer horror and fear that shook her very bones.

Hana Song gritted her teeth, thought about her loved ones, and pushed her controllers forward, trying not to pass out.

They pressed on for another few blocks, mostly unperturbed after the mass spectacle in the most densely populated area they'd passed through, but they _were_ perturbed by the sheer amount of people milling around in a panic, wailing and pleading with them. There were only a hundred or so Vishkar employees that found themselves in the middle of their trap, but considering that there were probably half of them dead.

Hana Song couldn't feel her fingers.

But…

Something else started to happen.

A mass of angry voices flared up in a steadily rising chorus, and Hana spun her shiny new Meka around to find that the people who had been screaming in fear, agony, and confusion were now screaming out of anger - pure unadulterated rage for the ones seemingly responsible for the destruction of their city. And Hana and her family were directly in the middle of it all, if not the recipients.

" _We don't have an easy out_ ," explain Satya with some small strain in her voice.

" _I've got you,_ " replied Angela.

That's when a flicker of purple light caught Hana's attention, but she misjudged it as being outside of her Meka. That's when fifty-four kilos of person dropped down onto her lap like a very large, very obtuse cat. A dark, lovely woman plucked the headset off Hana's head and spoke with absolute authority. "You're going to go down this side street and go through the teleporter there. It's going to be a bumpy ride, and you're going to feel a little sick."

" _Who the fuck is that? How'd you get on our line?_ " Jack.

"Listen, viejito - _Jack Morrison_ \- if you want information about Gabriel, you'll do what I say. Lúcio is already at the safe point, and it _looks_ like you went and pissed off a lot of people. I suggest you go."

Hana sat there, completely dumbfounded with a woman lying languishing on her lap with a feline smile not to be combatted. The strange woman slipped off the headset and hung it on its hook.

"It's _so_ nice to finally meet you, Hana Song. I've heard so much about you."


	48. Give It All

Amélie didn't make it long enough to watch Bastion and the crew of misfit refugees take down the remaining opponents in a mass push forward, instead collapsing into Lena's arms with shallow breathing and fluttering, unseeing eyes. Lena, completely bewildered, barely managed to catch Amélie before she was too near the earth to grab. Her shuddering gasps of breath seemed disproportionate to the amount of rigorous activity she'd been subjected to, but then again, Lena didn't know what Amélie had been through lately. The paper in Lena's sports bra crinkled, and a chill overtook Lena temporarily.

" _If she switches while you're sleeping, Lena, it could be fatal for you..."_

But instead, it was Amélie who was potentially fatally unconscious. The patter of her blood on the snow below splattered Lena's leg in a tepid splashback. Another shockwave that had nothing to do with Bastion's tank fire rocked Lena.

 _I could lose her now…_

Lena looked around frantically as the misfit refugees started ambling back toward her, and she searched for Bastion in the sparse crowd before spotting him. "Oi, Bastion! A little help!"

The large unit swiveled around and turned to Lena before trotting over while whistling a happy tune, but they stopped when they saw the ever-paling Amélie in Lena's arms, instead beeping frantically at their counterparts, two of which rushed off in a command to prep the nurses, and the others picked up their arms to fend off any straggler Talon agents.

Bastion carefully scooped Amélie into their arms from Lena's and started off at a modest jog that was too fast for Lena to walk behind comfortably and too slow for her to run next to, so instead she would walk for several steps and trot for a few.

Eternities passed from the corner of finding Amélie to the intersection of the nurse's office.

"Her wounds are only minor and do not warrant this amount of bleeding," said a wafer thin woman with wide electric blue eyes. "I will do my best given what I have, but her wounds must be more internal and related to her body modifications."

 _Internal_ … Lena chewed on her lip and scratched at her bare arm in the overly heated side room off of a cluttered but empty waiting room. Someone brought her a new shirt and jacket, but she shuffled her original jacket from over her left arm to her right. She couldn't let anything go right now. Not when Amélie was fighting to stay…

* * *

"Alive. She's alive and she's breathing easier," said the bright eyed nurse/doctor who threw her bloodied gloves into the trash. "She has a broken rib and narrowly missed having her lung punctured, but she should be… fine. For the time being. I managed to do some work and stop what internal issues I could, but without more reliable equipment.. "

Lena didn't like that tacked on last bit, but she sat up straighter in her chair and shook the sleepiness from her head. Pushing herself up, Lena shrugged off the small blanket someone had wrapped around her in her haze and nudged the bookbag beside her feet to pick up and throw over her shoulder. "Is she okay to walk?"

"She's still sleeping right now, but she should be waking up very soon." The doctor/nurse paused. "Do you have reliable transport for your mate?"

Lena started, nearly dropping everything in her hands. "My _what_?"

The doctor/nurse didn't even flinch. "Your companion. Do you have reliable transport?"

Lena frowned at the waif but nodded with some hesitation. She hadn't thought about that. "I need to make a phone call."

Lena sat by herself in the room that smelled like antiseptic and the left-behind smell of unwashed bodies. Part of her screamed with every ring from her phone but quieted when a small, charming face answered.

"Lena?"

A tiny spray of embarrassment flecked over Lena's cheeks underneath her freckles in a bright burning band. "Hey, Mei. I need a little favor."

Mei's dark, shining, startled eyes spilled over with tears. "Lena, you jerk!"

Lena looked away with a sheepish laugh and rubbed at her neck. "Yeah, I know. I'm getting that a lot lately."

The two spoke politely for a bit, with a little chastisement from Mei, of course, and Lena cracked her question tentatively. "So, uh… are you guys… home?"

Mei nodded more fervently than Lena thought she'd ever seen from the small woman. "Yes! And we've made a great discovery that I'm currently investigating. So… maybe it isn't a full discovery, but it's a step forward! It will take some time to figure out what it means, and if it's ready, I will show you when you come ho- er…" Her face lit up in an embarrassed blush.

"No… that's…" Lena took a shaking breath. "That's what I wanted to ask you about."

Mei's eyes gleamed with fresh tears, and her face illuminated with the widest smile Lena had ever seen. "You're coming home?"

Lena was started to get cold feet about the whole thing and wondered how she could get Amélie through train stations and in cabs to get all the way back home even though she knew it wasn't feasible. "How long would it take you and Zarya to come pick me an' Amélie up?"

Mei's face fell a little but almost immediately ramped back up to excitement, which made Lena reconsider the seeming disappointment that flickered across her friend's face. _Maybe she was just confused…_

 _You know better than that. You know they all hate who you are and who you've become._

Lena shook her head to rattle the thoughts off their bases. "She's… hurt, Mei. I can't get her back on the ground."

Mei nodded fervently and clapped her hands a few times, and Lena, though her exhaustion, couldn't help but notice how Mei's movement pushed up her shirt a little. "I'll prep the plane, and we- Wait, where _are_ you?"

Lena leaned back in her chair and huffed out, feeling the several days' worth of exhaustion creeping up on her and settling in like a bad onset of the croup. "King's Row."

Mei's eyes got a little sad. "Don't worry, friend. I'll be there soon. Zarya ended up dislocating her shoulder on the way back from Antarctica, so I'm letting her rest. She… popped it back in on her own."

Lena winced. "Got an ETA?" She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, wishing she couldn't smell the antiseptic and thinking too much about the weight on her chest - a crushing thing rather than a knife that she sometimes wished _she'd_ gotten instead of Gérard. Her thoughts rolled back to Mei, loose marbles on hardwood.

"I can prep and be out in less than half an hour. It'll take about a full hour to get there from where I am now - prep and all."

"Hurry if you can, Mei. I'm… really tired. And I really miss my bed."

Mei smiled, nodded, and signed off with a polite demand for Lena to turn on her location beacon through Athena so she could more easily find her, which Lena did without any hesitation.

When she looked up from her translucent blue screen, Amélie leaned against the doorway between the pristine back room and the grungy waiting room with large, hardened eyes. Lena's heart dropped.

"Are you kidnapping me?" Her voice - Amélie's voice - carried quietly over the empty chairs and empty tables.

Lena, for what felt like the millionth time that short day, sighed. "Yeah, love. I think I have to."

* * *

Lena's breaking heart filled the silence between them. She thought about opening her mouth from time to time to speak some filling word, but no words were strong enough. None appropriate in the awakening dawn and dying lamplight. Amélie just looked at the snowy ground nearly a foot away from Lena with her arms wrapped tightly around her in a protective grasp. She'd flinched from Lena's touch so many times…

This Amélie… this Amélie was so different from the one in Florence who had been all too willing to throw herself toward Lena.

 _No, she hid at first. She pushed herself into the dark corners wrapped in a blanket and refused to eat. It took time._

"It'll take time," Lena found herself whispering to herself more than Amélie, but Amélie looked over at Lena with a look that was _meant_ to be chilly but was as chilly as a teacup yorkie puppy was fearsome.

Only then did she start to blush in remembrance of Emily's embrace only… what? Three days ago? She'd eventually have to talk about it, that much she knew; otherwise, she knew it would eat her away with guilt. Right now, she was already feeling the claustrophobic tendrils wrapping around her throat and sliding down her throat and into her lungs. She swallowed involuntarily.

Mei came to the rescue by landing a Huge Fucking Plane in the middle of a park and ushering the two of them - Lena and Amélie - into the warm compartment. She seemed to notice that something wasn't quite right and decided not to hug Amélie, but she _did_ scoop Lena into a spinning hug that squeezed almost all of the air out of Lena's poor, aching lungs. Mei was so _strong_.

The ride back home - a whole forty five minutes - felt like an eternity for the first half, but then Lena decided to remove herself from the bench across from Amélie and to slip into the co-pilot's chair.

"Hey, love, how's it shakin'?"

Mei looked up with another wide grin and placed her phone face down on the arm of the pilot's chair. "Oh, Lena, I'm so glad to see you in person. I was so worried about you."

Lena felt herself cover her smile with the back of her hand in embarrassment, but she knew she couldn't hide the blush on her face. Mei had always been really cute, but when she got excited, Lena couldn't help but be completely endeared.

Lena's mind drifted to the solemn, quiet, bony woman in the back of the plane. Her teeth found her lip when she cast a glance back to find Amélie leaning her head against one of the headrests, completely rigid save for the slack-jawed softness in her face as slumber wrapped careful arms around the ragged woman. Her muted purple shirt was still covered in someone else's blood. Maybe her own, too.

Turning her attention back to Mei, Lena was met with amused eyes behind quaint rectangle glasses. "How conflicted _are_ you, Lena?"

Lena looked down at her hands, which were covered in dirt and dried blood. "Pretty fuckin' conflicted, love."

"You know…" Mei looked down at her own hands and started fiddling with her fingers in the nervous way she often did. "It's going to be alright. She'll come around. It's…" Mei looked up. "If anything, I know that patience isn't your cup of tea, and… when you're in an ice block alone for ten years… It's easy to tell people to be patient. But… It's just going to take some patience, friend."

Lena smiled and gently kicked one of Mei's feet. "Yeah, I guess so." A pause for a fading smile. "I don't know what I was expecting, honestly. Maybe for her to leap into my arms and kiss me and us get down and dirty wherever we met."

Mei snorted, and Lena's faded smile returned a little more genuinely.

"Mei, I didn't think I'd find her alive." She didn't have to say the other piece she thought because Mei's eyes grew dark and understanding.

 _I didn't think I was going to make it out alive, either._

"You _did_ find her, though."

Lena looked down at her hands and felt sleepy in the comfy chair with heat on her skin. "Now to figure out what to do about it."

Mei frowned in thought before turning back to the controls. "We've got another twenty minutes before we touch down. _I_ suggest getting a nap in."

Lena was already asleep before she could respond.

* * *

Lena awoke to being lightly jostled not by Mei's landing, which surprised her when she got her bearings about her, but instead by Mei gently shaking her awake. For the briefest moment, Lena wondered how Mei had gotten to Junkertown and into her hotel room.

"Hey, we're home. Aleksandra is waiting to help if you need it."

Mei looked… pensive, but that's when Lena noticed that Amélie was standing on the ship's loading ramp with cautious eyes and even more cautious posture. _Like a cat_ … Not the kind that Sombra was - a happy domesticated thing knowing that the next meal would be put in front of her - but the kind of feral beast that was so far from domestication that it feared not only people but any hand that fed it.

Mei lowered her voice to barely a whisper. "She's been awake for a few minutes, but she hasn't said anything."

"I can hear you, you know," came Amélie's voice from the back of the plane.

Mei's face went red.

Lena gave her best smile despite her fatigue and pushed herself up, taking Mei's hand in support. She stretched and her eyes fell on the tall, gaunt Amélie who frowned and tensed as if ready to run. Only a second later did Lena hear the plodding, crunchy footsteps of a very large, very beautiful woman.

"LENA!" boomed a large voice belonging to an equally large Russian.

A brick wall slammed against Lena and threw her into the sky only to catch her again, knocking out her breath every time she could catch it.

"Hey-" _swing_ "Zar-" _toss_ "ya" _plop, wheeze_

Lena bent over outside her home and tried to catch her breath only to be almost completely knocked over by a _light_ tap from Zarya. Still wheezing, Lena managed, "Good to see you, too, Z." Lena rubbed her ribs. "Didn't you dislocate your shoulder?"

The large woman smiled and shrugged. "I put it back. Only a flesh wound."

After a few minutes of recovery and shouldering her backpack, Lena helped Mei unload the plane of some of its extra supplies and walked into the house that she'd missed for _months_. Her _home_.

She'd almost forgotten Amélie standing in the snow in the sheer relief of standing in the Middle of Nowhere in the Netherlands. There was a tight, strange smile on Amélie's lips.

"The first time I realized I was waking up, I was hunting you here."

The words were more chilling than the snow.

" _The only one allowed to take her life is me."_

A little bitterly, Lena added, "And now I hunted _you_ to bring you back."

Amélie's arms dropped and walked toward the house, and Lena _swore_ she heard Widowmaker whisper, " _You should have let her die_."

Zarya and Mei stood in the snow, putting up extra munitions and rations, but Lena caught Mei's eye. Mei popped Zarya's arm lightly, and they both looked up to Lena, smiled, and nodded.

"We'll give you some _time_. We will go on date. Please do not be too loud until we leave, yes?"

Lena sputtered. "Aren't you guys gonna make sure she isn't gonna _kill_ me? And what about that thing you wanted to show me, Mei?"

Mei frowned. "Well, it isn't ready, and it probably won't be for another seventy-two hours. I miscalculated my math the first time around, but uh… About her… I think… I think you'll get her first, if it comes down to that."

Lena didn't like that answer but walked inside anyway, leaving the mischievous duo in the snow.

As she walked in the back door that she walked out of those months ago, Athena popped up in her omnic form, and Lena's stomach twisted into knots.

"She's in the kitchen," Athena said quietly.

"Not getting a butcher knife, I hope."

Athena gave a startled laugh, and Lena eyed her, feeling sweat prickle on her back. "Funny?"

"Dark humor is quite amusing sometimes, even for those like me."

Lena pushed the door closed quietly behind her. "Is she eating…?"

Athena nodded. "Ah, you can see me nod now."

Lena gave a bit of an unanticipated belly laugh, and her apprehension faded by mere degrees, her shoulders still trying their best to climb toward her ears. The tension in her traps could have played a plucky tune with how tight she was. "I know I've… already said it, A, but I… I'm sorry."

Athena was quiet. "I understand how returning home where this all happened would spur you into another apology, but I hardly think it necessary."

Lena stuck out her tongue. "Oh, just take it, you ass."

Athena gave another gracious chuckle with the incline of her head. "Apology accepted. I will keep an eye on you in your time alone, if you wish."

Lena paused, looking toward the separating wall from between the living room and the kitchen. "I'm… I'm going to have to trust her."

Athena inclined her head again. "Would you like me to notify Angela?"

With some chagrin, Lena consented. "If it's the right time."

Athena nodded but paused. "I don't think that… I should betray your confidence by making reports to Angela. She may be our leader, but she is not your mother." Lena smiled back a bit at the change in Athena's understanding and watched her fade away until the television clicked off.

Malicious butterflies assaulted Lena's stomach as she decided on the opening words that would pass between her and Amélie that would open a broader conversation between them. Her mind was not only coming up blank but any audio track that drifted through immediately turned into white noise and static. Instead, Lena Oxton did what she did best. She listened to her gut and ran on impulse. Right then, impulse was saying that she really wanted a peanut butter and banana sandwich.

Still dirty beyond anything she would have preferred, Lena fiddled with one of the rings on her backpack while she wandered down the hall to the kitchen to find Amélie standing there with an entire block of cheese sliced into thin pieces, a sliced apple, and sliced, salted deli meat.

A butcher's knife from the butcher block rested on the side of the cutting board that held the apple.

"You should be hungry," Amélie said, making Lena's heart fly.

"I'm peckish."

Amélie gathered several slices of each and placed them in front of Lena on a clean, glass plate.

"Helping yourself, love?"

"I, for one, am _very_ hungry."

"Why don't you eat something a little more… I dunno… more?" This wasn't how Lena thought the conversation would go, and her shoulders felt like they needed to apply for permanent residence near her ear territory.

Neither Amélie nor Widowmaker responded. She just continued to move fluidly and gracefully while preparing her own plate. With a huff characteristic of the Amélie untouched by war - the Amélie untouched by murderous hands, she sat and picked at her food with little enthusiasm for someone starving.

"Do… you want something else to eat?"

"No."

Another swing and a miss.

"I'm considering getting a shower after this, if that's okay." Lena paused, blushing. "I mean… you can get one first, if you want. I just… I still have some Australia left on me."

Amélie blinked and looked up, her eyes intense with probing curiosity - the first thing other than cautious fear and disdain that she'd expressed. "Australia?"

Lena rolled a shoulder and picked at the deli meat despite her painfully growling stomach. "Got sent there to pick up intel and ended up spending too long there." She pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows while tearing the dried meat with her fingers. "Way too long."

"Who sent you there?" But the question didn't feel invasive despite the chill that ran down Lena's spine at the remembrance of Sombra's "test."

"I don't know if you remember her but, I mean, she calls herself Sombra." Lena was about to go on a rant about Sombra's height, complexion, and luminous eyes, but she didn't have to.

Amélie hissed a feral cat's distaste. "I wish I didn't remember her as well as I do."

Lena swallowed the small piece of meat she had in her mouth and fell uncomfortably silent after a too loud gulp.

Amélie turned, her dirty, thin hair whipping around with the motion, and she took a place beside Lena, not leaning away from her but obviously keeping physical distance. Amélie took a breath and closed her eyes.

Lena didn't move, much less ask about the obvious change in tone and warmth in her words.

 _This isn't what I wanted..._

Another part of her pushed back. _You wanted her safe and alive more than anything._

 _But I wanted to have_ _ **more**_ _._

Amélie turned to Lena with a cautious eye, but her posture was slowly relaxing. "I thought you would be pushing me for information."

Lena shrugged, but she didn't particularly feel up to banter. A dark grey cloud pregnant with melancholy rain loomed over her. "It's your call." She redirected the conversation. "You never answered me about the shower, you know."

Amélie waved a hand with a mild snort. "I'll manage until you get back. I'm sure your guard dog is watching me, anyway."

That comment made an awakening start rustling within Lena's hidden fears. "She's not because I asked her not to. If _you_ think I should, I'll ask her to keep an eye on you, but she's not a guard dog, and she's not a slave. She does what she wants."

Athena blinked on in the kitchen. "I want to help."

Lena felt herself pinch the bridge of her nose like Angela before she could stop herself. "A, you're not _helping this situation._ "

With the most minuscule humor in her voice, Athena replied, "My apologies" and disappeared.

It was Amélie's turn to look slightly amused, but there was still heated fear just under the surface. "She's not watching, is she?"

Lena rolled her eyes. "Like I said, she does what she wants."

Lena pushed herself away from the counter and started off to her room, which she realized had been completely untouched since her last time there with the exception of the bed, which was rumpled from someone sleeping there. Lena was almost sure, though, that it'd been made before she left since she'd been sleeping in Hana's room. With a lopsided frown, she turned to her dresser to find everything in place, even the empty cigarette tray. Just looking at it made Lena's mouth dry. She slid it off into the rubbish bin, hearing the ceramic shatter and tear the little plastic bag in the mesh bin, and she reached for her sock drawer to take out, crush, and toss her remaining cigarettes.

She set down her bookbag and pulled out the jewelry that would keep her locked in and removed her chronal accelerator for a good full shower. She then rustled around for some clothes, pulling out a t-shirt and a pair of jeans that had long since been unworn. Some part of her ached in relief at how much she was _glad_ she was home, but the way her clothes smelled - like the cheap wood of her dresser - made her ache in a different way. _Why did I ever leave?_

And yet, she knew very damn well why. The whole reason was in the kitchen picking at the first food she'd seen in who _knew_ how long. The corners of Lena's eyes began to burn with a sting. She wiped them before tears could fall and shuffled off to the bathroom with a glance down the hall toward the kitchen. She didn't know what she expected. No one there.

Just her and Amélie.

And probably Widowmaker down there somewhere in Amélie's mind.

And Zarya and Mei outside.

But soon it would just be the two (three, counting Widowmaker) of them.

She made her way down the hall to the bathroom and turned the water to entirely too hot for normal human flesh and watched the mirror showing her dirty naked body fog over with steam. It seemed almost… surreal… being back home. Like nothing had changed. Not even the outer shower curtain. Not even the type of toilet paper. Everyone's toothbrushes were just the same in their usual holders with the names scrawled down the sides in the careful print of Angela Ziegler. Hers was among the mix where it always was. Third from the left. Frayed bristles. Blue handle. Tongue scrubber.

Lena shook her head and shuffled into the shower to scrub away every last speck of dirt left from halfway around the world.

She shut off the water and grabbed her warm, fluffy towel off the rack, and pulled back the curtain dramatically, emerging like a hungry butterfly and dried off quickly and relishing the smell of her own shampoo and soap and the feeling of clean, dirtless, bloodless skin and hair. What she was not expecting, however, was Amélie to be standing there with a dry towel twisted into a long rope, looking down at the sink with an intense frown.

"UH AMELIE WHAT ARE YOU DOIN'"

Amélie looked up, but her eyes weren't quite right. The confusion in them faded when she made eye contact with Lena. "Oh, I…" Her blue cheeks seemed to warm with a purple hue, and her voice was incredibly soft, especially compared to their chilly conversation in the kitchen. "I don't… remember…" She looked down at the towel in her hands. "I don't know…"

Lena pulled her towel tightly around herself and tucked the towel end into the part under her armpit. "Amélie… are you feeling alright?"frosty

Amélie looked back up at Lena, her fingers clenching around the towel, her eyes hardening again. "Not particularly."

Chills spread their frosty tendrils around her spine and over her skin. "Do you… wanna grab a shower? I can be out in a jiffy."

Amélie - beautiful but haunting Amélie - turned her eyes away from Lena with the same purplish hue coming to her face. "Will you stay?"

"'Course, I'm gonna be in my room. I'm not just gonna _leave_ you h-"

"No, will you stay while I shower. I do not want to be alone right now. She…" Amélie set the towel on the bathroom counter and wouldn't look Lena in the eye. She lowered her voice even more and closed her eyes tightly, wrinkling her brow. "She wants to come back…"

Lena's brain tuned into the white noise channel for a hot second. "Wid-"

Amélie's eyes snapped open, and her voice, still quiet, was hard in the same way that her eyes were only a short time before. "Don't say her name. It only calls her here."

Lena swallowed audibly. "Uh, sure, love. Yeah. Uh… can you let me get dressed?"

With a wrinkled frown, Amélie stared at Lena's toweled form for a moment before her eyes widened, a delicate hand going to her mouth in embarrassment. "Oh, _oh_. I'm sorry, Lena." Chills ran over Lena's skin again but in a different way. "I don't… know what's wrong with me. Yes. I'll wait outside."

Something in Lena wanted to just tell Amélie to come on in and hop in the shower with her - that she could inspect Amélie for… any extra damage they hadn't checked at the refugee camp. But… it wasn't the time for that. With Amélie and Widowmaker vying for dominance, Lena didn't know if it would _ever_ be the time.

Hastily, she finished toweling off and towel dried her hair, smoothing down the back as much as she could and leaving the front to do… whatever. She threw open the door to find Amélie sitting outside the door, looking up intently at Lena.

Without words, Amélie - not any hint of Widowmaker - pushed by Lena softly. "Um…" She turned with her arms tightly around her as she closed the door.

Lena straightened. "Oh, right." She turned around and covered her eyes. "You're good! I'll be good."

Fine, silky hair brushed Lena's arm and Amélie's lips nearly touched her ear. Some very distinct feelings started stirring up in Lena's gut again. "No peeking."

Lena immediately started sweating even before Amélie turned on the water to steam up the bathroom again. _Why did she do that?_

 _This is absolutely the beginning of a bad porno._

 _You don't even_ _ **watch**_ _porn, dumbass._

 _Yeah, but I've borrowed enough of Fareeha's books..._

Regardless, the quick switch between Amélie's cold distance and her strange closeness was… confusing to say in the slightest. And distressing. A tornado of… _feelings_ assaulted Lena's heart and… other parts of her. Other physical parts of her.

She heard the shower curtain rustle and pull back, and she started to turn, but a hot, wet rag slapped against the side of her head.

"No peeking, Lena Elizabeth."

Lena pushed down a shuddering breath and peeled the rag off her head. "Okay, _okay_ , for what it's worth I thought you were in, and I really was just going to brush my teeth."

"Highly doubtful considering your track record."

Lena's face blazed as she remembered the few times she'd accidentally walked in on Amélie changing, but she'd honestly just been walking around without thinking about knocking on doors. Amélie and Gérard only locked their doors in the first part of Lena's stay, but the longer that Lena integrated into their lives, the less they seemed to have boundaries with her. But the blush subsided when she thought about Amélie's cold, abnormally pale body lying limply in a great porcelain garden tub. " _I can't get warm_."

"Amélie…"

The sweet smell of strawberry shampoo drifted out of the bathroom, and Lena wondered when they started buying that particular scent.

"Yes, chérie?"

"Are you…" Lena chewed on her lip and the thought some more. "Are you mad at me?"

Quiet movement stirred behind the shower curtain, and it pulled aside to reveal Amélie's tired but clean face. "I'm irritated that you didn't even ask if I wanted to go with you, but I'm not _mad_."

"Wait what?"

Amélie disappeared back behind the curtain. "I'm in a great deal of pain, Lena, and I would like nothing more than to sit down with a glass of wine and a bed that I'm not afraid to sleep in." A pause. "Besides, as much as I don't want her to put her hands on me, I know the _good doctor_ -" She nearly spit the words. "Is incredibly adept and can fix whatever she can… Or she may kill me. It's worth a shot."

The weight on Lena's chest felt light enough for her to perk up a little. "I doubt Angela would intentionally kill you." Lena missed a beat before adding, "You can sleep in my bed."

Amélie didn't respond right away, probably remembering how Jesse nearly beat her to death while Angela watched, but her reply came out of left field. "Would you also be in it?"

Lena felt her heart thump loud enough in her head that she was almost convinced that Amélie could hear it. "I can sleep on the couch or downstairs if that would make you feel safer."

"No," she replied simply.

The water shut off, and silence fell between the two of them again, but it was less uncomfortable this time.

"Cover your eyes."

"Roger dodger." And Lena did as she was told.

It took most of her willpower to struggle through the sweating from knowing that Amélie was there with her - so close and so far away. And so very… naked. _Where did she get clothes?_

As if on cue, Amélie sighed and nudged Lena's shoulder intentionally enough to let Lena drop her eye guard, and Lena flushed at the too short t-shirt and tight sweatpants. _Her_ clothes.

Amélie looked down at herself, following Lena's gaze. "They're a little ill-fitting, but I suppose they will do for now. I apologize for ransacking your wardrobe, but I wasn't sure who else would let me."

"Oh, no. It's…" Lena swallowed. "It's a good look."

"Of course _you_ think so," she sniffed.

The silence regained its edge.

Lena tore her eyes away. "Uh, do you want a toothbrush?"

"That would be… nice."

Lena did as she was bid and excused herself from the bathroom to let Amélie get finished tidying up, pointing out where the toothpaste was and offered a load of bobby pins and hair bands. Once she left, she walked quickly to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine. A big glass of wine. A _mug_ of wine.

"The little pup is having lady trouble, yes?"

Lena jumped, nearly spilling the rotten grape juice on the countertop. "Jesus _fuck_ , Z, you scared me."

The large woman laughed and walked from the breakfast nook to the bar. "You know, alcohol is not always the answer."

"Listen, I just _permanently_ gave up smoking. I think a little sippy won't hurt me too much." Lena raised the mug and took a big slurp. "Besides, the tension is..."

Zarya leaned across the bar. "Not how you imagined?"

Lena shook her head and looked down at the burgundy liquid in her glass.

"It will take time, but that is not what you wanted to hear." Zarya ruffled her own hair and smiled at Lena. "You wanted to hear something like 'She's fine, and you should tell her she's pretty and then you _kiss_ her,' yes?"

Lena opened her mouth to say something but only a strangled, mangled pterodactyl noise came out.

"That is what I thought." The large woman tapped Lena lightly on the shoulder with her fist with a gentle smile and sad eyes. "From what I understand, she is a complicated person."

Lena looked down. "What if it's not the same?"

Zarya sighed and gave Lena the most stern look Lena had ever seen. Her brow furrowed and her eyes mimicked her brows - concerned and uncomfortable. "Lena, there was nothing between you before. It is likely that there will be nothing now. You must accept this."

The weight on Lena's chest turned into sharp pain that lanced her with every thud of her heart, but her words were dry despite the bubbling, emotional, fear-induced rage within her. "What if I don't want to?"

The softness went out of Zarya's eyes altogether and her jaw tightened into a hard line. "Then you did nothing for the right cause."

Lena looked down, unable to maintain eye contact with someone like Aleksandra. She wasn't a noble person. She was… _selfish_ …

Contrasting the hardness in Zarya's… everything… Aleksandra squeezed Lena's shoulder gently. "Be open with her, Lena. That's all you can do."

Lena nodded, and for once, she tried her hardest to trust someone that wasn't herself.


	49. Recover

Lena made her way back to her room, overly large glass of wine in her hands, and wondered what she thought would happen. Maybe… Maybe she could just… _be_ with Amélie for a while. Maybe they could laugh. Maybe they could talk about fears. Maybe they could just catch up.

Lena tapped her forehead against the trim of her doorframe and let her fingers rest on the cool aluminum doorknob, and her eyes caught fell upon the ring on her finger that she'd all but forgotten. Reinhardt's gift to help her find her way back to her home. She swallowed, gripped the doorknob lightly, turned it in a way that wouldn't make the latch click too loudly, and pushed the door open a hair before opening it all the way. Her apprehension was only one portion of why she went through so many motions with the door - not wanting to see Amélie and wanting to run into her arms - but she was also concerned about startling Amélie into attacking.

Instead, Amélie lay on the bed, hands neatly folded on her chest and staring at the ceiling. Her eyes were glassy, and she didn't look up in the nervous way that Lena expected. Just just… lay there. Completely silent and completely still.

Lena, still holding onto the door like a shield or a curtain, spoke quietly. "Amélie?"

The wet-haired woman languidly turned her head toward Lena. "Yes, chérie?"

Lena swallowed. "Do you want me to leave you be for a bit or…?"

Amélie turned her face back up to the ceiling. "No, you may come in." But that was all she said.

As Lena shut the door, Amélie spoke again, and Lena jerked, almost spilling her wine over the side of her hand. "It's been… a long time since I found myself in a comfortable bed. Forgive me if I'm a bit…"

"Sleepy?" Lena interjected, and Amélie looked over with a fatigued smile that was not at all forced.

"I am very much sleepy."

Lena rested her cup on her nightstand and sat on the edge of the bed, not quite close enough to brush against Amélie but close enough to feel the subtle warmth of her skin. "It's only midday, but if you think you can sleep, I think that would be a great idea. My sleep schedule is a little…"

"It's never been a normal one," Amélie supplied in such an offhanded manner that Lena fell immediately back into an old pattern with the woman in bed for a whole two beats before remembering her blue skin and her thin hair.

The smoldering warmth in Lena's chest died out, a starved ember with no kindling to catch. "Yeah." Another thought struck her like a hammer on a very big, very loud gong. "So… you're remembering stuff now."

Amélie looked over at Lena, and the tiredness in her eyes Lena had only seen once or twice. No, definitely twice. The first time, Amélie had thought Gérard assassinated, and she wore away at everyone until Jack sat her down to talk to her about how badly Gérard had been injured in the attempt.. The second time, Lena had disappeared from a malfunction in her chronal harness and been launched into the Between - that terrible nowhere filled simultaneously with light and void… an everywhere and nowhere.

Lena shuddered in the memory and her fingers started to go numb at the tips. Almost instinctively, she clenched her fists, closed her eyes, and took a breath. A tiny shock - the bite of static between two parties - made Lena jump a bit and turn to Amélie, who was looking down at her hand touching the small of Lena's back.

"It's the memories of the past that haunt us the most, isn't it, Lena?"

Lena shivered but not from any chill in Amélie's voice for once. She shivered in the pleasant air of what felt like so many years ago on the comfortable Lacroix couch with a glass of wine in one hand and a slew of study papers before her with Amélie by her side, helping her study for her General Education Degree. "Remembering hurts sometimes, love, but it helps us become who we are."

Amélie sighed. "I don't know who I am anymore, chérie… But I _do_ remember more now." Her other delicate hand went to her forehead, and she closed her amber eyes with a slight grimace that contorted her gaunt face into an unsettling mask. "Remembering has started to take a toll on my mental state in a way that seems counteractive to what I desire."

Lena wrinkled her brow. "What do you mean?"

Amélie was quiet for a time until the grimace waned. "I…" She looked off to the side, away from Lena's eyes. "I want to remember, but sometimes… it's difficult. There are… periods of time that I still can't bring back." She pulled her hand away from Lena's back and gestured widely. "It's like a giant cloud of static surrounds those memories, and then my head begins to hurt bad enough to make me scream."

It was Lena's turn to scowl in discomfort, and she asked lamely, "Do you need an aspirin?"

Amélie offered Lena a ghost of a smile. "No, Lena, but I _will_ take a sip of that wine, s'il tu plaît? I haven't had a good drop in a while."

Lena nodded and offered her mug to the reclining Amélie, who pushed herself up to gaze curiously at Lena for a time before taking the glass. "No poison, right?"

Lena half-heartedly smiled at remembering her asinine prank on Amélie/Widowmaker the last time they'd shared a meal. "No, or else Zarya managed to get me, too, and then we're both dead."

Amélie's eyes glazed over with a ceramic coating for a hot second before fading back into gentleness. "Your jokes are less funny now."

Lena sweat.

"But you're still as endearing as ever," Amélie added tenderly just before she took a sip from the glass and offering up a delicate sigh that raised the hairs on Lena's arms and stirred the embers below her bellybutton.

Lena took her mug back, and Amélie sank back into the bedding. "I wandered for a good long time before I found the refugees in King's Row."

Lena looked up but said nothing, too afraid to scare off a potential conversation topic.

"I wandered in Paris, trying to remember… _something._ " An agonized pause that made the strong features of Amélie's face twist. " _Anything_." Another pause and a shaking breath. "I found so many things while I was there, taking comfort where I could. Having people buy me drinks. Buy me food… Anything for an exchange of warmth and the sustainments of life."

Lena's stomach rolled at the thought of Amélie wandering alone and needing to take advantage of her situations in order to _live_ rather than out of convenience.

 _Selfish_ , whispered the ghosts of Lena's past.

 _Stop it_ , she commanded them, and they relented with hesitation and begrudging.

Looking down into her glass, Lena was all too aware of the sound Amélie's shifting head made on her pillow and even more aware of how Amélie stared hard at the side of her face to watch for weak points. "I killed the ones that tried to touch me, and I took those that I needed their money. I drugged the ones who brought me to their homes and apartments and their _beds_." Amélie turned back up to the ceiling, and her voice fell even more quiet than before. "I slept my way through Paris and huddled in hostels to try to keep from being recognized and seen… And… The longer I was…" She gestured with one hand, nebulously and weakly. "Awake, I suppose, I found myself wandering and trying to find purpose in what I later realized were my old haunts. I found myself thinking about Gérard, qu'il repose en paix, and most of all," She covered her eyes with one hand and smiled in the same fashion that she gestured - in a paradoxically spirited yet fatigued manner. "I found myself thinking about what you would say if you could see me."

The breath seemed to come more laboriously for Amélie after her burst of talking, and she coughed a little when she tried to catch her breath. Lena hesitantly rested a hand on Amélie's chilly arm.

"Well, I see you now, and I'm just glad you're alive."

It obviously wasn't the right thing to say from the glare Amélie shot Lena. "At least one of us is."

Uncomfortably foreign silence fell between them in a web of tense lines.

"Amélie… I know… you didn't want me to bring you back here…"

Amélie's voice was hard and practical like it had been years ago when certain students were being rowdy. "I didn't have anywhere to go, Lena." She sighed, her voice thawing from it's chill. "I didn't want to come here, not with the mad doctor and the idiot cowboy-" Lena smiled sadly, wondering when they would come home. "But… I understand that this is the best place for us. Um." She paused, and her amber eyes slid away. "The best place for me to recover from… whatever this is."

"Programming?"

Amélie raised her hand again and wiped at one of her eyes with the heel of her hand. "I fucking _hate_ that word."

Lena couldn't help but grin a bit, even if it was strained. It wasn't every day that Amélie swore, but Lena's mile faded with Amélie's grimace.

"There's something very wrong with me, and I… feel like I'm fading…" Amélie grabbed onto Lena's hand harder than before, hard enough for her fingers to feel like claws tearing into her flesh - the talons of a bird of prey.

Lena reached to Amélie's bony hand and squeezed it slightly - hard enough to tell Amélie to let go but not hard enough to hurt her. "Hey," Lena said in as calm a voice as she could manage after seeing the truth of her friend resurface after so long. "It's gonna be alright. I'm not gonna let anyone hurt you, and we're gonna make it better."

The energy and life burned down low in Amélie's eyes with Lena's reassurance, and Lena thought for a second that Amélie was going to die in front of her eyes for no apparent reason. She'd seen it more than once. She'd been in enough fights to see people seem like they were coming around the bend to go downhill in screaming flames so suddenly that no one could even prepare for a visit to the medic. Panic seized her, and she grabbed Amélie's hand desperately.

"Amélie…" She barely breathed, and Amélie looked up at her with a curious expression that made Lena's stomach flop around like a landed fish.

"Chérie, you almost sound worried about me." The shadow of a smile on Amélie's cracked and tired lips turned into the smallest smirk.

Lena rocked back but didn't let go of Amélie's hand. "You have no idea."

The silence that fell this time didn't feel quite as thick. Quite as cloying. Amélie seemed to fall into a light sleep, and Lena managed to wiggle further up on the bed and found her eyelids heavy and a yawn on her tongue but nearly jumped out of her skin when Amélie quipped seemingly from a dead sleep, "Oh, her little battery's run out."

But it wasn't the voice of her friend. It wasn't even the voice of who she'd seen earlier. It was Widowmaker's voice, and Lena suddenly decided that sleeping wouldn't be the best option for the time being. At least not in the same room.

Instead, she made herself get up and mosey to the kitchen with her three-quarter empty mug in her hands. She didn't know what to do but fiddle around and try to stay busy until Amélie woke up, but she was tired enough herself. Jet lag. Fighting. Inertia from running for too long.

Lena found herself in the living room on her least favorite recliner - the maroon monster that felt like sandpaper and berber carpet had an itchy baby - and curled into a ball.

Sleep came though it did not come easily. Her mind kept drifting back to things Widowmaker had said to her, and her dreams confused Widowmaker's words with Amélie's voice and Amelie's words with Widowmaker's voice.

"Lena? Oh, Lena."

Lena felt herself being jostled around and fought to open her eyes that felt like they'd had lead shades drawn over them rather than eyelids. She could barely get out more than a whine or an unintelligible mumble.

"Lena, chérie…" Amélie.

"'M awake. 'M awake," She mumbled over and over until it was more than a vague garble of noises.

Her body woke up before her mind, eyes snapping open and the heaviness on her chest vanishing like a puff of smoke - not at all then all at once. Despite feeling more liberated from her bodily weight times the sun's gravity, breathing felt more like trying to breathe through a wet rag, and coughing lurched her whole body from groggy sleep, nearly making her throw up. One strong hand wrapped around her forearm to help hold her upright and another firm hand rubbed circles on her back.

"Mon enfant de malheur…"

Lena looked up with watery eyes and the most sour feeling in her stomach. "Um, hey, Amélie." She took a long breath through her mouth. "What's shakin'?"

Amélie gave a pensive smile in response.

Leaning her too heavy head on Amélie's shoulder, she looked up and asked, "So… was I yellin'?"

Amélie nodded and let Lena lean more heavily on her until the two were curled up in Winston's favorite chair, and Lena found herself enjoying being with Amélie despite the quailing nausea rumbling in her stomach.

"Do you dream about him often?" Amélie's voice was quiet and more than a tinge weary.

Lena blinked. "Who?"

"Gérard."

The dreams, lost in the panic of waking up too slowly, came flooding back in a rush. Widowmaker - beautiful and lithe and naked and deadly - leaning over Gérard's bloody chest, looking squarely into Lena's eyes. Lena swallowed loud and sweat broke out over her skin. "It's always the same."

Amélie nodded and rested her cheek on Lena's forehead.

"Me too."

The two fell silent, Lena trying to hold back the nausea in her stomach and remaining quiet so she wouldn't accidentally yartz everywhere and Amélie because of obvious reasons.

Amélie broke the silence first. "When did you start painting your nails again?"

She reached down and picked up one of Lena's hands that rested on her thigh, and held up her hand lightly before lacing her fingers with Lena's.

"A while ago."

Amélie said nothing back for a time.

"Christ, this is awkward," Lena finally said with a huff and a laugh, running a hand through her messy hair. "Are we jumping right into this wholesale? I thought you hated me for picking you up. Are we gonna make small talk? Or are we goinna… you know."

"Fuck?" Amélie offered helpfully, raising a finger and a brilliant smile in a _eureka!_ kind of way.

Lena's hand went to her chest to stop her heart from busting out of her ribcage and her face set aflame at the same time her fingers grew cold. "NO!"

Amélie put her hands up in a mock defensive gesture, pushing Lena forward a little. "Logically, that would ease some of the tension, especially since you've expressed interest in me physically for… hmm… eight years? My memory isn't the most reliable these days."

 _Yeah, eight years._

 _SHUT UP, OH MY GOD_ , Lena scolded herself.

 _Just sayin..._

She grinned at Lena with wolfish amusement. "Where would you like to go to talk?"

"My room, I guess. First, I want to get some water, though. Feelin' a bit queasy still."

Amélie nodded and moseyed after Lena into the kitchen, taking up a barstool at the end of the counter while Lena poured herself a cold glass of water wishing her stomach would just… stop being that way. "Lena?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you get me a glass?"

"Sure, love."

The tiny bits of dialogue that flowed between them felt less weird in the light of Lena pointing out the tension between the two of them, and Lena felt much more relaxed. She offered Amélie a glass and motioned for her to follow. The two padded down the hardwood floors in the hall and they came to a stop just outside Lena's door. She looked down at the almost too-full glass in her hand.

"You know," started Lena. "It was really weird at first to be in a house instead of the old HQ."

"And so far away from everyone else…"

Lena glanced back. "Yeah, it was wild to just be stranded in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do, but we're pretty lucky that we're accepted by this community, and they do a lot to help us out by turning a blind eye to us running around in public."

Lena pushed open the door to her room and let Amélie in first.

"You go out a lot, then?"

Lena tilted her hand in a seesaw motion. "Sort of. I don't go out as much as I'd like to, but I don't have anyone really who would go out with me usually."

Amélie frowned. "Not even Hana?"

"Nah. She usually keeps weird hours, so we mainly just stick to each other at home."

Amélie set her cup on the nightstand and crawled into Lena's bed, crossing her legs and tilting her head with a scrunched up expression. "Home."

Lena shrugged and followed suit, climbing up into bed next to Amélie. "It's kinda nice to have a place to call that after so long. I don't even feel weird saying it anymore."

"You used to call our apartment home."

It wasn't supposed to sound as harsh as it hit Lena, but that didn't stop Lena from flinching.

"Amélie… How much do you remember?"

"I already told you, chérie."

Lena frowned.

"If you're asking if I remember all of the horrible things that I've done, yes. I do, for the most part. I very much do. Memory fades all of the finer points sometimes like memory always does, but that's not my-" Amélie made a face like she tasted something sour. " _Programming_. That's just… life." She paused, this time looking less like she had a pile of lemons in her mouth. "Why don't we… go back and forth to answer questions."

Lena perked up, straightening her back. "Like in Florence?"

Amélie nodded with a tiny smile. "Like in Florence."

"Ah, well. Okay. I just asked one, so I guess it's your turn."

Amélie pursed her lips and looked away. "I didn't think about that."

Lena's face broke out in a grin. "Want me to ask another while you think of one?"

Amélie nodded.

"Okay. Hmm…" Lena was coming up mostly blank, but her overtaxed brain settled on a half-baked question. "So, how long were you with the refugees in King's Row?"

Amélie pursed her lips and took a sip of water, and Lena couldn't help but notice the way her cracked lips shone with the moisture. Lena looked away to her empty dresser, which was more interesting than she thought possible… or so she told herself to stop lusting after Amélie.

"Time is hard to tell. I know there's…" Amélie sighed, as if suddenly very tired. "I know there's a time where _she_ took over, and I escaped into the night for a time. No one asked questions when I returned, but the snow had begun to melt. I assume I was out for a week or so. Maybe two." Amélie tapped a long finger on her glass. "Ah, right. The question at hand. I would say that I started being with them a little during late-December." Lena opened her mouth to say something, but Amélie's eyes lit up and she added, "It was definitely late-December because I remember Christmas with them." And more excitedly - "And New Year's!"

Lena started grinning again. "Been with them a while then, eh?"

Amélie nodded with the same fervor, but her eyes had grown sad. "I will miss them, but it was necessary that I go with you."

Lena's heart twisted. "Did I-"

Amélie held a finger up. "It's my turn."

Lena closed her huge mouth and waited, a tiny tendril of insecurity caressing her for a moment before Amélie spoke again.

"How did you find me?"  
The question hit Lena like a sack of bricks in the most ACME fashion possible – unavoidably and absolutely cartoonishly. She bobbled her water glass and splashed some on her exposed leg as she tried to nestle it in the crook of her calf and thigh.  
Lena swallowed and she attempted to deflect, wiping off the spilled water and not wanting to go into details about her aimless meandering, Junkertown, and her inexcusable slaughter of a dozen or more men. "Well. I mean… I kinda already told you. Sombra-"  
"No, chérie. Why did you come after me?"  
"That's a different ques-" Lena's tongue dried up into dust with the withering stare Amélie gave her.  
"The truth, Lena."

Her voice was hard compared to how gentle she'd been not long before  
 _She's not playing around…_ Lena had danced around, thinking up neutral enough questions, but Amélie seized her opportunity to delve into the topic that Lena wanted to avoid the most. She closed her eyes to gather herself only to be met with the image of the boy - no, - the Talon agent's eyes rolling back in his head, foam dribbling out of his mouth and onto the shiny tile floor… and… the exhilaration and the fear and the bloodlust she felt in the heat of battle.

The heat of battle...  
A hand just a shade off warm enough to not be shocking squeezed Lena's own, and Lena looked up to Amélie through a hazy wall of warped image. She blinked and stinging tears fell hotly down her cheeks.  
"So fucking much happened since you left," Lena managed with a shaking voice to match her shaking breath. She laughed but it was an involuntary response to keep her from crying. She held tightly as she could to Amélie's hand, trying not to drown in the well of her own thoughts and memories.  
Amélie said nothing, and Lena took it as an encouragement to keep going, maybe even a demand.  
"I barely remember getting home from Florence. It's like a giant fuzzy grey gap in my memory. I remember instances but nothing more than a few points. I was apparently out for days." She paused and corrected herself, "A week, actually, and I was convinced from then that you were…"  
"Gone?"  
Lena nodded and chewed on her lip for a minute. "Christmas night… I left." Guilt slapped her around with such a cavalier statement. "I couldn't stay when you could be out there. Alone. With Talon. I didn't know, but I knew that I couldn't stay. I got in a big fight with Athena, and I spent a few days wandering. I was headed to Paris to find you when Sombra swooped in and told me where I would be going."  
Amélie's face contorted again, and Lena wondered how she could convey so much when the last time Lena had seen her, she'd been expressing little more than a slab of marble.  
Getting more comfortable and less negatively emotional, Lena continued, "I ended up spending a few weeks in Melbourne trying to get used to the heat and prep myself for the trip before I headed out, but I ran into two guys that I took up with for a while. It took another week or so to get to Junkertown."  
"Junkertown? You… you went to Junkertown." The skepticism made Lena frown but grin in the light of Amélie's coy, disbelieving smile.  
"Yeah. I did. And you want to know what I called myself?"  
Amélie waited expectantly with a growing smile – the genuine kind, not the kind that Widowmaker flashed. Not the kind a cat gives before licking up the last bit of its prey.  
"Tracy, Amélie."  
"No." Amélie put her hands up in resignation, still smiling. "You did not."  
Lena nodded insistently. "I absolutely did. Fuckin' Tracy. How fucking stupid am I, right?"  
"Not stupid! Just…" Amélie put a finger to her lips in mock thoughtfulness. "Just not… imaginative."  
"I know. It was so bad." Lena rolled her eyes at herself, feeling lighter than she had in possibly months. Talking was a lot less painless than she'd thought. "I went and found my way to Junkertown with Roadie and Junkrat-"  
"What." Amélie leaned in.  
Lena shrugged. "Yeah."  
"The criminals?"  
Lena nodded. "They're really soft boys. I don't know what all the hoopla is about them."  
Amélie shook her head and leaned back against the wall, looking at the ceiling. "Lena Elizabeth, you are absolutely ridiculous." Amélie looked back at her with soft eyes and a softer smile.  
Lena's heart started skipping again as if she had forgotten all of the tension of only a half hour before. "Y-yeah. I mean… We got there, and I ran into-" Lena hesitated, unsure of how to put it. She was up front to you about her doings in Paris. Another part of her, the chastising one as always, replied, Yeah, but she had to for survival. "I ran into Emily."  
Amélie blinked. "Lindholm? Your…"  
Lena nodded and looked away, and Amélie squeezed Lena's hand. "That had to be… rough."  
"It was weird. She pity-shagged me after a week, and I thought about trying to get her to help us and our publicity again. See if we can't get running again." Lena shrugged one shoulder and closed her eyes, relishing Amélie's touch but remembering Emily's sighs.  
"You didn't strike me as the type for pity sex, Lena," Amélie said, but it wasn't the scolding tone that Lena anticipated, though she didn't know why she thought Amélie would scold her for having a sex life. She'd always been supportive of Lena's sexual exploration and always loved juicy details.  
"Hey, I didn't expect it. It was just kiss, kiss, whoops I'm inside you." Lena felt her face growing hotter than a thousand suns. "It was more… her. You know, uh. Never mind."  
Amélie raised a brow and squeezed Lena's hand again, but there was something in Amélie's eyes that reminded Lena too much of Widowmaker, and Lena decided to move on with the conversation.  
 _The only one allowed to kill you is me_.  
A little shiver ran down Lena's sweaty back, and her nausea that had somehow gone away in the middle of the mostly pleasant conversation returned.  
"Anyway, I ended up leaving Junkertown and hitting the Alice Springs Talon base with Roadie and Junkrat, and I found info on where you were." Lena looked down at her glass and unstuck it from her leg to take a too big sip, and water ran down the side of her face.  
"Been drinking long?"  
Lena just shot her a look with cheeks puffed out and full of water, which made Amélie laugh a little – that melodious laugh that warmed Lena to her core and put her at ease. She swallowed and grinned, but another memory struck her. I don't want to die. Lena glanced away at Amélie's shining face to look at their hands – their fingers weren't intertwined in any intimate way, but instead, they clasped in a platonic way.  
"I didn't expect to make it out alive and barely had a plan."  
Amélie snorted softly but not out of derision. "You're doing one better than I am. I have no plan."  
Lena tilted her head. "Did I answer your question?"  
Amélie nodded. "It's your turn."  
Lena frowned. "What's your deal with Sombra?"  
The look that settled onto Amélie's face made Lena wish she hadn't asked.  
"She oversaw that Reyes didn't completely kill me." She paused. "The me that's here now."  
"So… she's good?"  
Amélie remained still as a statue for a time. "She serves herself, and her morality only comes from what benefits her."  
"Then… why did she let you go?"  
Amélie sighed and started to pull away her hand, but Lena let go, not wanting to restrain her in fear that she would clam up and become cold again. "She knew that Reyes would become unstable and power hungry, so she preserved part of my mind to help it take over again, creating a weakened force in Reyes's belief in his own people. She knew it would cause a bloodbath, but she knew it would facilitate his downfall."  
"Do you wish she'd let you…" Lena trailed off, the words turning to mush in her mouth.  
"Die?" Amélie offered, her expression placid.  
Lena nodded.  
"Sometimes." She sighed. "I so resented you finding me and saving me from those agents."  
Shock made Lena snort. "You were handling them just fine when I got there."  
Amélie rolled her eyes from the ceiling to Lena. "No, I was starting to… struggle. When I start fighting, there's something in me that feels like it snaps and… she comes out. If I try to stop her, I end up being unable to fight, paralyzed by my own fear of fighting and losing or fighting and her winning. I don't want her to come out at all, but there's a balance I can strike if I'm in a good enough place." She looked toward Lena's partially uncovered window. "But… It's almost too hard to be in a good enough place to keep her at bay at all, much less in the heat of battle."

Lena didn't really know how to respond and just kinda moved her whole body side to side a bit, trying to loosen up some of the discomfort making her shoulders go rigid. "Er. Uh. You know. You don't have to… talk about it. If you don't want, of course."

Amélie waved her hand dismissively. "I'm getting tired again, but it's nothing too distracting." She paused and put her free hand to her mouth in a way that tugged ever so slightly on her chapped upper lip. "I think it helps to talk about it."

Lena looked at the blue blinking clock next to her bed, lamenting the hour. Not late enough to sleep. Not early enough in the day to want to be awake. Her limbs also felt heavy and her eyes, which had been wide open while Amélie talked, felt gritty and sandy and pulled open by force. To top it all off, her stomach just felt… sour. A little wrong. A little off. And she really just wanted to curl up beside Amélie and sleep.

"You're welcome to talk about whatever you like, love."

Amélie tilted her gaze to Lena and the smile on her face felt more like it had the first time Lena had ever seen her. Nervous. Tentative. Willing. _Happy_. Though it was small, it was incredibly satisfying for Lena - encouraging. "What if… I want to talk about you...?"

Lena blinked and dropped Amélie's hand almost fearing that Amélie could feel her heartbeat through their touching hands. "Oh, love, I'm not that interesting."

Amélie pulled her fingers away from her mouth finally and Lena's eyes followed them, noting the tiny bit of shiny spit left on her middle finger. Lena swallowed and leaned over to put her cup, still wedged in the crook of her leg, onto the nightstand, stretching out her legs across the bed and leaning against her stack of pillows.

"Tell me something, Lena."

Lena desperately tried not to visibly sweat. "W-what do you mean?"

Amélie shrugged and shifted, pushing her hair back from her face and unfolding her legs to sprawl on her stomach and look up at Lena. "Just something. About yourself. About your life. About… anything."

Words came out of Lena's mouth before she could really think too hard about them, which got her in trouble more times than not, but this time, she was glad that she let herself just… be. "I've missed talking to you, Amélie."

Amélie rested her cheek on the palm of her hand, and her hair, still drying, fell lazily over her shoulder. "I've missed it, too, Lena. I still…" She bit her lip and looked away to watch Lena's hands. "I still hear Gérard's voice. I still see him sometimes in other people. In reflections in windows. I talk to him sometimes, and I…" She covered her face, but Lena could see the dazzling smile just under the hand that covered her eyes. "I feel really stupid telling you this."

Lena shrugged. "I would talk to you when you left. I thought you were gone. I swore I saw you in crowds, and I convinced myself that you were dead - that I couldn't have seen you at Gérard's funeral. No one else believed me or saw you, so I thought I was just…"

"Grief-stricken."

Lena nodded and took a breath, her nausea rolling in on tumultuous waves of stomach acid. "I miss him too, you know."

Amélie blinked slowly and nodded. "I know you loved him."

Prickly sweat assaulted Lena's spine. "Not like-"

"Not like you loved me," She said with a tiny, sly smile. "But you did love him. As a friend and a companion and a housemate."

"He was… never my best friend, and sometimes I regret not being closer to him."

Amélie nodded and looked away from Lena, her blueish cheeks turning a deep purple. "I loved him with my every breath, and before… before Talon took me, I began to love you that way… I think…"

Lena lay there in utter silence. Her mind seemed to tick off for a time, completely shut down and refused to work at all. "You?"

"You confessed last time," said Amélie as wryly as possible and rolled over onto her back to look up at Lena.

The motion felt nearly childlike. Like someone who couldn't sit still and just _had_ to wiggle and roll around.

But Lena still lie there completely stunned and fought the urge to just start talking about macarons or something else equally off topic and stupid. She tended to do that when hit with a lot of information or particularly heavy information. Just zone the _fuck_ out.

"Amélie?"

"Yes, Lena?"

She started to say something else, but her stomach rolled again, and this time, it wasn't an empty threat. An air bubble popped in her throat in a terrible burp, and she sat bolt upright before launching herself off the bed and lunging for the door, her stomach squeezing so hard she thought she might pass out. She sprinted halfway down the hall , and her mouth filled with less than savory textures and acidic liquid chunks. She barely made it to the bathroom before another wave of terror reigned upward from her stomach, and she yartzed as hard as possible into the toilet. She wasn't aware how much time passed between her sweaty forehead pressed against the cold toilet ring and when Amélie started patting her face with a damp cloth, but she _did_ know that Amélie there with her made it better. Amélie rubbed hard circles on Lena's upper back and cooled the back of her neck with a lightly damp washrag.

An amused little laugh escaped Amélie. "This is not how I expected the night to go, but it is… much more nostalgic."

Lena couldn't respond for the third round of barf but managed to keep her pelvic floor from coming up into her esophagus with the wretching. Her throat burned and her head throbbed with every lurch of her stomach or beat of her heart - whichever happened first. After two more horrible squeezes and two days worth of food come up later, Lena rocked back, sitting on her calves and feet. Amélie patted her face with a revitalized cold rag and swept in with a glass of water and a carbonated water. Lena hadn't even realized she'd left until she came back with sweet sweet loot in hand.

She wiped her running nose and took the carbonated water from Amélie, taking small sips to make herself less sick.

"Nostagic?" Lena looked up and felt the bubbles stinging her throat in the wake of the bile.

Amélie nodded. "I remember helping you when you first came to live with us after Emily broke things off. You drank yourself sick and smelled like you'd been rolling around in ashes and eating them, too. It was a lot like this, you know. Minus the cigarette smell."

Lena snorted and bonked her head on the bathroom wall before rolling her head to look at Amélie sitting cross-legged next to her. "How did you _want_ tonight to go?"

Amélie's blue cheeks darkened to purple again. "I'm… not sure."

Lena sipped a little more at the cold drink, feeling much more settled, if not a good bit sweaty. And the two sat in comfortable quiet for several minutes, Amélie's hand on Lena's knee. "Let me get my teeth brushed and the bathroom cleaned up."

Amélie waved her hands emphatically, damp cloth still in her left hand. "I'll clean if you show me the cleaner. Get brushed up and go lay down."

Lena did as she was told and plucked her toothbrush from the holder and brushed her teeth, pointing out the cleaner and grabbing both waters from the counter before moseying back to her room. She crawled up into bed to find a long brown hair curled on her pillow. The only person with brown hair… _Hana?_

"Hey, A?" Lena's voice was a little hoarse after being so sick.

Athena blinked on Lena's television screen. "Are you alright, Lena?"

"Has Hana been in here?"

Athena went silent. "I don't… know if I should divulge Hana's doings…"

Lena held up a hand and reached for her glass, taking a slightly larger sip. "Don't worry about it, love."

Athena nodded and paused again for a time. "I'm sorry, Lena. Brazil. No, not Brazil… not anymore… The other team…"

"Needs you? Are they okay?" Lena's heard skittered in the way it always did when she heard anything about her teammates.

"Need me. They're… fine. I think. I must go. My servers are… incredibly strained. I will keep you updated."

"Thanks, A."

With that, she went away and a timid knock sounded on the door.

Lena plopped back down with a huff. "Come on in."

"If you're still talking, I can go to-"

Lena shook her head. "Nah, climb on up here and snuggle me."

Amélie came in and closed the door behind her. "What? And catch the pestilence you've wrought on us all?"

Lena rolled her eyes. "We drank out of the same mug. If I have it, you have it."

In a monotone, Amélie rolled her eyes and said, "Oh, no, what _ever_ shall I do?"

Lena stuck her tongue out, but Amélie came to the bed and climbed in.

"You know, I thought you would give me a cold shoulder for weeks. Instead, after two hours of being a bit chilly, we're getting along like we used to."

Amélie shrugged and curled up a bit below but still by Lena. "I decided that it wouldn't be in our-" She looked away. " _My_ best interest."

Lena couldn't say anything to that except "Is she fighting for control?"

Amélie shook her head. "No… No, I don't think so. It's just… habit from being alone."

Anxiety brushed Lena's heart, mind, and stomach like smoke on the water. "Are you still mad at me?"

Amélie laughed a genuine, silvery laugh that blew away Lena's anxious mist in a refreshing gust. "No, I'm not. When you've been where I have and seen what I have and _felt_ what I have, grudges don't seem very appealing unless they save your life, hence why _Angela_ and McCowboy still unnerve me."

Lena looked up at the smooth ceiling, wondering how Amélie managed to get through everything between them so quickly. "Hey, Amélie?"

"Yes, chérie?"

"Do you think anything could happen with us?"

Amélie was quiet and pursed her lips for a long moment. "You must be fever-stricken to ask such a question so soon."

Lena laughed, but her throat strained with it and she coughed. "Maybe, but… I do… wonder."

"We've been back together for only a few hours, and you're asking about moving forward?"

"Maybe I don't have time to wait to ask."

Amélie frowned even more deeply and her eyes turned a shade of concerned that made Lena regret what she'd said. "Is… something wrong…?"

Lena looked away. "It was supposed to be a joke but…"

Amélie didn't sound exactly pleased when she spoke. "Lena… None of us know when our time will run out."

Lena glanced over and met Amélie's eyes for the briefest second before shame overwhelmed her. "Selfish, I know."

"Lena… That's not it at all. You…" Lena nearly got jostled off the side of the bed as Amélie climbed up all the way beside her, her back against the wall. "Lena…" Amélie bit her lip and put her free hand on Lena's sternum, undoubtedly feeling Lena's heart flying at a mile a minute. "When did you get rid of your accelerator? I- I can't believe I just noticed."

Amélie chewed on her lip until Lena thought it would bleed.

"Oh. Oh! Uh… Winston." Lena paused, and she remembered how Amélie had asked about taking off her accelerator last time things got… heated. "Winston made some jewelry that does the same thing, but I can't use my time powers with this stuff. It's got a better, longer explanation, but I might fuck it up."

"It's… a good look."

Amélie's long fingers gently rubbed Lena's collarbone and sternum, and something built within Lena. Maybe not as quickly as it had built between her and Emily, but it built all the same. Warmth spread of Lena, radiating from the smoldering flames left by Amélie's finger tracing patterns on her chest.

Lena didn't want that warmth to stop, but she didn't want Amélie to feel pressured to show her affection. "Amélie, you know-"

Amélie pulled away her hand from Lena's chest to put a finger to her lips. "Don't say anything that would deter us."

Lena blinked but nodded obediently before Amélie pulled away her finger. "If you're sure."

Amélie smiled and eyes were soft and coy. "I haven't decided on anything. It really depends on how much you're willing to keep saying silly things. If you want to stop, you can always say, but I…"

Lena's cheeks were already hot enough to melt steel beams. "You?"

That's when Amélie lunged and Lena's body tensed to flee but help locked rigidly in place under Amélie's almost nonexistent weight. Lena's brain lagged for another second before her brain locked onto Amélie's lips - hot and chapped and cracked - on her own, which felt like she'd put them directly on a live wire. It was suddenly hard to breathe for the heat of Amélie's body and the scent of her shampoo - for the subtle, enjoyable weight she pressed onto Lena's stomach and the sheer static cloud of electric ecstasy.

Lena pulled back as much as she could with the pillow supporting her head, and Amélie's lips found their way to the corner of Lena's mouth and down her neck. "Are we…" It was almost too hard to catch her breath "Are we going too fast, do you think?"

That's when a sharp but not unpleasant pain bit into the skin on Lena's collarbone, and a short, surprised cry escaped her sore throat.

"I've waited long enough, and so have you," purred a voice that was… not quite Amélie's.

Lena pulled away more forcefully then. "No, not like this."

Amélie looked up, eyes hard and wild and filled with… something. A lioness's glare at the sight of an easy prey. "No?"

Lena bit her lip, wondering if her chance would ever come again if she turned Amélie away now.

 _But she isn't completely Amélie right now._

"It's her…" Amélie whispered and closed her eyes.

They stayed close like that for a time, foreheads almost touching, Amélie's eyes closed, their lips barely brushing. Amélie's breath on Lena's lips and tongue.

When she opened her eyes again, Lena knew that she hadn't completely boned over her chance to bone, and Amélie was there. Fully in control. "Lena, I… I don't know. I'm not… I don't want to stop. I-"

That's when _Lena_ took a bit of the lead. Amélie gave Lena the go-ahead with no apparent persuasion from Widowmaker, and Lena wasn't about to let that slip by her. The only thing that would stop her now, she thought, would be Amélie… or Widowmaker… or both telling her to knock it off.

Lena went for broke.

She placed her hands gently on the sides of Amélie's face, which was still close enough to her own to feel the tingling breath puffing gently on her skin. In the same fluid motion, Lena closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to see Amélie's reaction and pulled Amélie back into a softer kiss than the one before. The one before had had the rigidity of surprise and the tension of a first, but this one had the softness of a kiss that would turn into something much warmer. In the blindness of her own doing, she tried to imagine Amélie's face shape just by what her fingers told her.

 _This_ kiss had the spark strong enough to stand up to the nervousness that would quell any lesser feeling - any lesser drive.

 _This_ kiss fueled the sparkling flame that showered down in Lena's insides, burning her from within and chasing away all of the cruel, cruel cold.

 _This_ kiss caused a sigh to roll up from deep within Lena and escape softly from her throat and directly into Amélie's mouth.

Amélie responded in turn, and Lena dared to open her eyes for the first time since she dove toward to woman in her arms to behold Amélie's cheeks dusted in a purpleish blush. Amélie's own eyes remained closed, her eyelids colored with bruising in some unsavory eyeshadow. Warmth flourished in Lena's own cheeks and in the pit of her stomach, and she tentatively stroked a strand of hair from Amélie's face.

Amélie's eyes fluttered open but not in the panicked way they had in Florence when she'd been too close to her new memories, and as their lips parted, she whispered against Lena's skin, "Do you want to stop?"

Lena shook her head in the most miniscule gesture, and their noses brushed together, eliciting breathless, electric giggles from the two of them. Amélie's body tensed and shifted on Lena's pelvis, and as if growing its own inextinguishable free will, her pelvis tilted upward while her head fell back onto the pillow with a heavy sigh.

"I thought you were a little less…" Amélie pushed Lena's hips back down onto the bed with her own and looked up at the blank wall above the headboard with a thoughtful expression. "Comment ça se dit… coquine…" She looked back down at Lena, an embarrassed blush this time dancing over her cheeks and flushing against her throat. "Never mind."

Lena smiled back up, but she could tell that she had a shit-eating grin on her face. "The French is kinda hot, love."

Amélie shifted and moved her hands from beside Lena's head to Lena's shoulders, pushing her more firmly into the mattress, and looked gravely into Lena's eyes. "Je mange du fromage."

Lena's grin only grew wider. "Hey, now. Now I _know_ you're fucking with me. I heard cheese in that sentence."

Amélie rolled her eyes in feigned disappointment and kissed Lena's forehead. "Oh, and I thought this would be easier if I could just run a grocery list by you and get you off that way."

Lena, who had let her hands drop idly from Amélie's face to the tops of her thighs, moved her hands upward, gently stroking Amélie's strong legs and thumbing the bony ridge of her hipbone which pulled up Amélie's shirt slightly.

Lena pried her bottom lip out from between her teeth to say, "I… don't think that's gonna be hard to do at this point."

And Amélie's warm smile made her heart flutter in a different way than all of the vague, mildly sexual charges. "We don't…"

"No."

Amélie's smile faded by degrees. "No?"

"Amélie… You know that I, uh." Lena swallowed, suddenly keenly aware of the light sweat forming on the small of her back and on her chest. "You know that I love you, and I… uh, I think you've known that for a long time."

Amélie nodded decisively, not hemming or hawing around. "Yes."

"And I… I want this…" Lena motioned toward Amélie's lithe form over her. "I want… _you_. But I'm…" She took a shaking breath as Amélie delicately placed her hand over Lena's heart. "I'm scared that you're… I don't know. Doing this for me or something. Doing this because… you know that I want to."

Lena felt herself on the precipice of a cliff that sheered off into a very vast, very deep ocean of babbling and confessions, but before she could fall into that ocean, a sliver of precipice crumbling beneath her feet, Amélie caught her in a kiss that clearly declared her intentions.

She pulled back just far enough to speak. "Lena… I want… _You_." She paused, and Lena felt Amélie's top lip drag against her own as she Amélie down on her bottom lip. "I have for a while… Since before Talon took me…" She spoke now in just a whisper. "I told him, you know… Gérard." She took a breath and leaned back a little more to look away much to Lena's dismay. "I knew that I found myself able to love equally among multiple people… I knew that I could… feel that way just as strongly. That my oath would not diminish, but I'd… committed myself exclusively to him in marriage, and I… wouldn't act on my feelings despite his consent…" She looked back to Lena with a sheepish expression, so odd on her high and haughty features. It made her look… softer. _Younger_. Like the eight years between Lena's meeting her and now hadn't existed at all except in Lena's worst nightmare. "When I was still able to feel… Before the memories were gone… I knew that somewhere I blamed my love and want for you as my motivation for killing him, and Talon used it against me to turn me to their will more readily."

Her sheepishness turned into gentle resolve with her next words. "Lena Elizabeth Oxton, I want this. I want you, if you're ready."

Lena didn't have to ask again.

Their nervous, tentative kisses were no longer as Amélie leaned back down to Lena's face, kissing her with the curiosity of held back hunger. The sincere gentleness translated into Amélie's fingers gingerly tracing over the ridges Lena's face - her jaw, her cheeks, her temples - and led Amélie to push back against Lena's head with the careful force she used to brush her fingers through Lena's hair, the dampness of which made Amélie's fingers pull a little more roughly than either of them expected. Lena's breath caught as a few hairs got prematurely snatched from their follicles and the two of them laughed in the anticipation of what loomed pleasantly on the horizon.

Amélie paused their smooch session and twisted around with a frown, and Lena could see that the sweatpants that Amélie had creeped were biting into her hips. "These clothes are…"

"Restrictive," Lena finished for her, smiling a bit.

Amélie returned the expression in a lopsided smirk before she peeled off Lena's shirt from her body and tossed it aside. She… wasn't wearing a bra, which Lena should have expected but hadn't, and looming over her, Amélie's emaciated, bruised, lacerated body hurt Lena's heart more than brought her pleasure. She barely looked bigger than a toothpick, and the brown-faded bruises on her ribs blossomed into inky purple-black stains along her stomach and sternum. Until then, Lena hadn't noticed how the tattoo on Amélie's forearm seemed to bleed its ink over her skin in a mixture of bruises and pigmentation.

In a recovery from looking too stunned or pitious, Lena quipped, "Man, I thought the pants were going first. I guess I owe Zarya five Euros."

Amélie quirked an eyebrow but her smile belied her feigned irritation.

Wordlessly, Amélie leaned back down to kiss Lena again, but Lena stopped her, too nervous to touch her bruised body.

"Is something wrong?"

"Doesn't… doesn't it hurt?"

Amélie blinked before looking back down at herself, blushing and folding her arms quickly over her exposed breasts, which were equally as battered as the rest of her. "I don't… think about it much or it starts to. We can-"

Lena stopped Amélie's train of thought by tenderly pulling away Amélie's arms away from her chest and trailing her index, middle, and ring finger over the unbruised parts of her skin, what little there were. "I don't want to hurt you, Amélie…"

Amélie closed her eyes with the smallest shudder and breathless sigh as Lena's fingers just barely touched the skin under Amélie's belly button. "You're… not hurting me now."

Lena smiled, but it was a weak thing.

Amélie looked down, the warmth in them seeming to turn the glowing amber into molten honey. "Lena, please…"

Lena placed her hands on Amélie's waist and tugged her back into a kiss, which Amélie drove deeper than the surface heat they'd maintained by her lovely tongue running over Lena's bottom lip, and Lena found herself getting lightheaded but not wanting to stop. The smoothness of Amélie's teeth against Lena's own tongue and lips startled her when they turned to bite, but her only reaction was a soft sound that escaped her throat involuntarily. But Amélie's kisses and nipping bites shifted from squarely on Lena's mouth to the corner to her jaw and to her ear.

Amélie stopped her nipping journey to breathe heavily through her nose as Lena started to move her hands upward and over her battle stained ribs.

"Does it hurt…?" Lena heard the depth of her own voice, the whispery way her voice lowered when she was getting hot and heavy.

"Quite the opposite, chérie." Amélie snorted a breath against Lena's ear, making chills break out over Lena's forearms. "You make me feel the best I have in a _very_ long time…"

Lena felt her ears grow about a thousand degrees warmer and laughed nervously.

"It's. uh… A little hot in here. D-do you mind?"

Amélie pulled back with a curious frown, and Lena wiggled out of her shirt, black sports bra still clinging tightly to her elbows. She didn't have time to react before Amélie's weight shifted forward, and her mouth found Lena's more sensitive flesh. Lena managed to rip off her constraining underwear but wasn't able to stifle the low sound to come from her throat, a mixture of a moan and Amélie's name.

The tightly woven knot in her stomach dissolved along with any remaining butterflies, and Lena sank into just _feeling_ Amélie there with her.

 _This is a dream, and you're going to wake up._

But the small voice within her was easy enough to ignore with Amélie's sheer warmth and weight pressing down onto Lena's torso.

Lena's back arched without her willing it as Amélie dragged her long body down Lena's own, leaving kisses and bites and hot trails from her fingers with Amélie's golden eyes looking up at Lena in silent wonder and askance.

More sounds drifted from Lena's mouth no matter how much she tried to stifle herself, but she didn't _want_ to be stifled and had no real reason to do so. No one was in the house. Just her. Just Amélie.

Amélie, looking up while propped on her elbow at Lena's hip level, absently twirled the drawstrings of Lena's sweatpants. "Oui?"

"Hell yeah 'oui,'" Lena laughed but was cut off by her own aroused body's vocal reaction to Amélie running her fingers over Lena's still-partially-clothed body.

Amélie didn't say anything, but she _did_ smile like the cat that got the canary and slowly pulled her index finger in the same line over Lena through her sweatpants. Lena was only barely able to notice Amélie's smile growing deeper and wider as her eyes fluttered shut with the motion carrying her into a full-body shudder.

"Amélie…" Lena whispered in the midst of her soft noises.

The woman above her just smiled and nodded, looking away a bit sheepishly and contrasting her self-satisfaction of only moments before. "I like when you say my name…"

"Amelie," Lena managed a bit louder, through her gentle trembling.

Amélie resumed her teasing for only a few moments longer, seeming to look for something that Lena readily relinquished. Her name. Not just her name. Her name on Lena's lips, spilling from her tongue.

Only then did Amélie relinquish her game by pulling down Lena's sweatpants and underwear in one graceful move, and Lena wasn't quite sure how she did it, but she became very suddenly, very acutely aware of how genuinely, starkly naked she was. Amélie looked up, the confidence in her eyes mostly gone, but she leaned down with earnestness and kissed the insides of Lena's thighs to the crease where her leg met the rest of her.

Then, Amélie's tongue made a tentative pass over Lena, and Lena's back arched up off the bed, her hands nearly going to Amélie's hair before she stopped herself. No, grabbing her like that would be too much, and she wasn't about to ruin this moment. The next pass, much slower and longer, made Lena cry out and fade into near-mewling. Amélie paused her actions to check on Lena with a concerned glance, but Lena nodded as if to say _keep going_. And Amélie did, but she didn't get stuck in the rut that Lena thought she might, changing patterns and areas, taking time to draw out some of Lena's reactions to the point where tight hotness gripped Lena only to fade and surge back to its original intensity, but Amélie didn't relent. Sweat formed on Lena's brow and on her back, and she found her mind getting lost in the haze of Amélie's movements as waves of rolling delight buffeting her in rhythmic beats. Just before she completely lost herself in the bright white of a near chanting of Amélie's name and the ecstatic pleasure coursing through her in an electric storm, pressure pushed against her and _into_ her, making her breath catch and her eyes fly open to see Amélie smiling up at her with a shiny chin, two fingers in, but she still didn't stop.

She changed her pace and rhythm to keep Lena strung along as long as possible, slowing down when Lena's breath picked up, her moans and mewls and cries growing more frequent and louder, and speeding up when Lena began to hit a lull, changing her methods and means to keep Lena just on the precipice of the most ecstatic rush she'd ever experienced and no closer nor further away than the very edge until Lena heard herself begging. Absolutely _begging_.

"Please…"

Amélie paused, and the endless waves stopped, leaving Lena's stomach feel hollow and hollowed out. "Please?"

" _Please_ ," Lena insisted with as much coherency as she could manage.

"Please what, chérie?"

"Please let me finish… Please… I need to…" Lena was long gone from fully coherent, but she tried her best anyway, knowing how silly she sounded, but the desperation was too greatly pressing upon her for her to care.

"One condition," purred _Amélie_ in the most self-satisfied way.

"Please…" reiterated Lena.

"Say…" Amélie's fingers shifted within her, and Lena mewled breathlessly. "My…" She spared another lick to draw out another moan. "Name."

And Lena did. Over. And over. And over until her lungs ached and her vocal cords sang in tune with the melody she called out. Against her skin, Lena could feel Amélie's own shuddering breaths as Lena reached her peak and embraced it, chanting her name like some ritualistic thing unknown by mere mortals.

Shudders and gasps overtook Lena after the greatest of the thunderclaps stunned her with dazzling, blinding light, and she groaned when Amélie pulled her fingers free only to shiver again when Amélie licked them clean.

"Do you need a few minutes?" asked Amélie softly, crawling up to be level with Lena, wrapping one arm tightly around her body.

Lena nodded weakly. "Maybe a few hours."

Lena felt Amélie smile against her forehead. "And then it's my turn, yes?"

Lena pulled back and smiled with as mischievous a grin as she could manage with the utter exhaustion and fuzzy brain that plagued her. "Absolutely."


	50. Bright Lights

Hana fell face first into the most nasty ass tile floor she'd ever seen in her miserable goddamn life. Her ears rang like she'd been standing next to a bomb when it detonated, and her stomach felt as scrambled as Angela's overcooked fake eggs. "What in the goddamn."

Her muscles protested, but she managed to push herself up off of the grimiest floor in the world with the heels of her hands to try to save her face from _some_ of the grime. Her left cheek had collided with someone's mud-dried dirt bootprint. She involuntarily made a noise of disgust and wiped her left cheek angrily as she sat up, but she'd still rubbed in the clay dust she had on the heel of her hand from pushing herself up. Around her, she heard similar noises of distaste and discomfort.

"Get up, get _up_ ," hissed the voice of the woman that had fallen onto her. "We're in a place where I can keep you hidden, but not if you act like complete _idiots_."

Hana glowered up at the spindly lady but managed to push herself up. "Where are we?"

Angela stood, too, and dusted herself off with a grimace. Others popped up like daisies after the initial shock of landing in the worst toilet in Scotland. The smell of dirty clothes, urine, and cheap fastfood hit Hana's nostrils after pulling herself off the ground. She nearly gagged, but there was a smell - so foreign yet so homey and comforting that she scrambled forward, leaving her friends behind to take in the classic white and red tile mixed with yellow.

"Holy fucking shit."

"You're _welcome_ ," replied the feline fatale watching her with crossed arms.

Angela's disdainful huffing echoed Fareeha's. And Jack started laughing. "A fucking _McDonald's_?"

"How is this subtle!" lamented Ana, covering her good eye.

Hana could get by the smell if she could just get some good old chicken McNuggets and several Big Macs. It had been _**years**_.

"Listen, kiddies, I did my best, okay? Go get your kibble, then we'll talk. Oh, and before you panic, I sent Beyoncé back to his cute little base camp, and I sent the big guy home with some sedative. Didn't want him to panic. Non-humans have a tendency to… panic when they go through that kind of teleport, which," She leaned over and put a hand on Satya's shoulder, much to Satya's distaste."I _must_ thank Ms. Vaswani for her technology. She didn't _mean_ to hand it over to me, but oops." She turned her attention to Satya a little more closely, and Hana could see the discomfort growing in Satya's eyes and posture. "You surely must come up with a better password than Hana's birthday."

Satya looked off to the side, avoiding eyecontact with the stranger, and tugged her arm away. She scuttled off to the side and down at a table adjacent to one large enough for most of them.

She and Hana exchanged tired smiles, and she nodded, letting Hana scuttle around the corner to find the source of increasing chatter and ruckus. A discontinuous line nebulously clustered around the red laminate counter, a line of people in an array of costumes. Hana's heart skipped excitedly, and the mystery woman swept by to put her elbow on Hana's shoulder.

"Convention? Or are we in some weird alternate dimension."

"Well, it's Atlanta, so go figure which is which, but there is a convention happening nearby."

Oddly enough, she saw people dressed exactly like her team was except… their outfits looked more like foam and latex paint than metal and polymer materials - not that they were bad. In fact, some of them looked nearly indistinguishable from the real thing, especially when Angela hovered over Hana's other shoulder with a soft gasp.

"What is this?"

The mysterious woman rolled her eyes. "Just get your vittles and come sit. I don't want to explain everything more than once. My time is valuable."

Angela wrinkled her nose and hung back near the table the mystery woman selected, and only Hana, Jack, Torb, and Jesse stood in line for their food. Ana and Rein had given Jack orders for flurries, and Jesse volunteered to get Fareeha one big enough to share with Angela. Zenyatta hung back, unwilling to throw himself into an unfamiliar crowd in an unknown area.

 _Atlanta?_

Hana shoved aside the question and did what she did best. She worked the crowd but this time in complete anonymity. She did her best to compliment those around her, recognizing some of the outfits from shows and games she'd played and even recognized a Kerrigan cosplay that made her stomach fill with fluttering butterflies and made her jump with excitement. She missed being able to intermingle with crowds without a horde of people following her, but sometimes, she managed to slip into her suit and steal away to similar meetings.

Some people even complimented her cosplay, which made her snicker and throw a peace sign. "I'm the closest _you're_ ever going to get."

Some people even took photos of her while she waited in line, and Jack laughed. "You're famous even when they don't know who you are."

Someone nearby asked, "Is that your dad? How did you get your dad to be so cool?"

Jack laughed even harder, clutching his sides with the visible part of his face turning pink to dark red, and Jesse caught Jack's case of the giggles. Hana started smiling from the sheer silliness of it all, able to completely, if temporarily, push aside the nausea brought on from remembering the tragedy in Brazil.

"I'm breaking about forty contracts right now," she giggled.

Genji materialized beside them with no complaint of anyone around. There were too many to notice who got shoved in and who got shuffled out. It was getting a little hot for Hana's taste, but she couldn't rightly just sweep out of the line when those good good Big Mac's were just three people away when her heart sank.

"Uh… Jack…?"

"What's up, kiddo?"

"Do you have some cash on you because I am… practically naked under this suit. There's not a lot of pockets in this gig for money, you know."

Jack's shoulders slumped, and he poked his hip out a bit when he crossed his arms, just enough to make Hana have to _work_ toward stifling a smile, and Jesse sighed, tipping his hat down just enough to pull out a crinkly, old as fuck twenty dollar bill. "I got you covered, lil lamb."

"Christ, Jesse, do they even take your paleolithic currency here? We're at _McDonald's_ , not a _museum_."

He frowned a frown that almost looked genuinely distressed, but she'd grown to know him best. Torb wiggled out his wallet from somewhere, but he only had non-valid currency.

"Uh, oh. Looks like we need eomma's credit card."

No one volunteered to go get Angela right away, but Genji relented and offered to procure Angela's card much to everyone else's gratefulness. He seemed to be getting along with Angela more even _if_ they hadn't necessarily worked well together in the field. It hadn't been an outright thing, it'd been much more subtle. Everything about their dysfunction in the streets had been mostly subtle. Lack of communication. Going over prescribed lines. Hitting two things at once that only needed one force. She was only beginning to realize all of this now, after the fact.

Remembering the fight ebbed some of her excitement and revelry with her teammates, and she had to remind herself that she was apart from them. She was just a kid in their eyes. She was just… Hana.

Genji reappeared just after, and his body posture told them everything they needed to know. Angela was probably more than a little unhappy. But then again… he _did_ save the day in the nick of time.

The five of them approached the counter to an exhausted looking cashier. 'Welcome to McDonald's, how may I take your order."

Hana was the first to lean across with her prize-winning smile and said, "Two Big Macs, a thing of thirty-two McNugs, a Butterfinger Flurry, and a Coke."

The redhead staring at her weakly nodded as if completely drained by the waves of cosplayers and the demands of customer service. Hana grimaced once she realized how much she'd just put on the poor kid that was only a little younger than she was.

"Will that be all for your order?"

Jesse butted in next. "Naw, I want four Oreo Flurries, two large fries, and a Big Mac with no onions."

Jack gave Jesse a dirty look. "Who gets a Big Mac without onions?"

The cashier began to look more distressed.

"Give gramps back there two Big Macs and a small fry, since he is one."

Torb demanded attention next by asserting his order for a coke and a large fry, and Genji repeatedly tried to order pancakes despite the breakfast menu not being available at this time of day.

After the worst ordeal at the counter with Genji having to go back to get Angela to show her ID, they finally managed to shuffle by the crowd, still cheering them on, and scuttle back to the table where the mysterious woman, Angela, Fareeha, and Zenyatta sat.

Angela frowned as Hana her piled over tray plopped and clattered, in that order, next to her. Angela stole a nugget and picked at it, and Jesse slid her her flurry from across the table, which she caught without even trying. Fareeha was smiling wider than Hana had seen in a while and was laughing with Zenyatta about going for late night flurries and fries at the McDonald's across from the Great Pyramids while on her security track. Torb sat across from the mystery woman and waggled his eyebrows at her, much to her distaste. Jack shared his food with Ana who let Reinhardt steal her fries, and Jesse made the mistake of offering Zenyatta some fries before realizing that Zenyatta couldn't actually eat real food. Satya, who Hana had mostly lost track of in the flurry, sat off to the side, not wanting to be in the crowd too much.

"Okay, little ducks. Are you all sorted out enough to get down to business?" asked the mystery woman.

"Yeah," Hana managed with a full mouth of chicken nuggets. "Who the fuck are you?"

Angela didn't even protest. She just nodded in exhausted agreement.

The woman sighed and rolled her eyes. "No appreciation for theatrics here. No wonder Gabe left." Hana saw Angela stiffen out of the corner of her eye, and Fareeha took Angela's hand in a comforting gesture. "Okay, okay, I'm Sombra, and all you need to know is that I'm an informant on Gabriel." She shot Hana a dazzling smile. "You've been looking very hard for me, haven't you?" And she swiveled to Angela and Fareeha. "And you two ignored my call card, which was very rude. Fareeha, I know that Ana raised you better than that."

Fareeha looked over with her trademark, petulant frown, and her eyes widened a bit before she covered her face with one hand. "Stuttgart."

Sombra nodded languidly. "You're a regular detective Ms. Amari."

Jack grunted. "What do you want with us?"

"Well, I wanted us to all sit down in a neutral location of my choosing and discuss some things like the nature of my visit and uh… I'm fairly certain that Amélie formerly Lacroix is now at your base and sleeping with Lena Oxton, not to air out her dirty sheets or anything."

Ana leaned forward. "Do what?"

"Your eye's missing, not your ears, Ana. I figure that she's stable enough to manage, but her condition is rapidly deteriorating, and only Angela can fix her before she's beyond saving. Reyes is also coming down with a case of degeneration, but there's nothing to slow his descent, only to prolong it a little more. He thinks that he's managing right now, but I've only been able to stave off his suspicion for so long. The time to strike will be sooner than you want, Overwatch team."

Angela's eyes darted around and she hissed, "Can you keep your voice down?"

Sombra shrugged. "Finish your flurry. We're heading out very soon, and everyone will soon be in one place."

"Everyone?"

"All of you, and Emily. And those two sweet Australian boys that Lena picked up. I'm even thinking of including someone _you_ know Lindholm. You know, other than your daughter you can't remember."

Hana blinked and swallowed the last bite of her first Big Mac before turning to Torb. "When is the whole gang going to be here?"

Sombra rolled a shoulder lazily. "When you're ready, cariña. And none of you are ready."

Angela leaned forward this time, "What do we do now?"

Hana jumped as Satya glided by, filling the space beside Sombra, and spoke quietly. "We go home and we prepare for war, Ms. Ziegler."


	51. Dreamy Bruises

Lena pushed herself up and leaned back on her forearms, watching Amélie's naked back rise and fall slowly if not unevenly. Lena's muscles felt stringy like she'd gone on a vigorous run the day before, and she wondered how out of shape she really was. But then again, she didn't have much practice in her previous day's activities. Not for years, at least.

She shifted in bed, her legs stretching like unwilling guitar strings uncoiling from around their tightly wound spool. Lena looked over at the clock beside the bed only to sink back in bed and roll back over to look at Amélie's sleeping face. It was still early enough to lay around a little longer.

Without thinking, Lena reached out, brushed a strand of Amélie's thin hair from her face, and trailed her fingers down Amélie's skin, which felt almost too warm for comfort to touch. Lena bit her lip, the sweet softness of waking up beside Amélie evaporating like the morning fog in the summer sun. Amélie made a soft noise in her slumber and shifted around a little, and she closed her half-open mouth with a gentle smack of her lips. The breath she took was uneasy, though. Labored.

Lena could feel herself slipping into a chilling pool of malicious memory before she could stop herself as she watched Amélie's ragged breathing grow harsher, and she clenched her teeth, focusing on Amélie's too hot flesh and trying to stave it off to no avail.

She felt her own breathing hitch repeatedly as an elephant descended upon her chest, all of its feet in one spot on her sternum to push every last bit of air out of her, but she still felt like she couldn't breathe out. She couldn't breathe out, but she was _suffocating_.

A barrage of memory...

"Lena, chérie… Please."

Lena blinked several times, looking around blindly and feeling the sandpaper grit of tears scrubbing at the corners of her eyes. Her breathing steadied somewhat as her eyes finally focused on Amélie, and she reached out with a hand she didn't realize was shaking until she saw it, but then again, she jumped when she saw her hand. It didn't feel… attached to her. The warmth of Amélie's cheek, though, was enough to draw out some recognition of attachment to her far-away limb.

"Mon Dieu, Lena, are you okay?" Her eyes were warmer than her skin, and Lena found herself temporarily dumbstruck, but she nodded her head anyway.

"Chérie, what happened?" Amélie placed a bony hand on Lena's cheek and gnawed on her imperfect bottom lip.

Lena spoke, but her voice was low and gravelly like it always was after growing tinny from crying. "Memories. Bad ones."

Amélie frowned, but the look comforted Lena. She didn't speak for a long moment but then asked, "Do you want to talk about them?"

Only then did Lena notice the blackened circles under Amélie's eyes had grown worse overnight. "No, I'm fine." She couldn't bring herself to burden Amélie with memories and fears this early in the morning. "How are _you_ feeling?"

Amélie shrugged nonchalantly, but the grimace that flickered across her face as fleetingly as a beat of a hummingbird's wing told Lena otherwise. Amélie seemed to notice Lena's radiating doubtful miasma and relented an inch. "I could be better. I'm feeling… very unwell this morning. I'm wondering if it's changing environments or if I'm…"

She trailed off and looked away from Lena and out the window, but her eyes were unseeing to the melting snow outside.

"We're going to get you fixed, Amélie. Physically that is," Lena said with more certainty than she felt. "I'm not going to get you back just to lose you again."

Amélie smiled, but it wasn't the warmest thing. "Is it only for personal gain, Lena?"

Lena shook her head a little too intensely in the fading dissociation of a panic attack's aftershocks. "Would I travel halfway around the world, fight goons, team up with criminals, raid an ice cream parlor, and go back where I grew up _just_ for personal gain?"

It was Amélie who leaned in and initiated a kiss that made Lena's chest feel less constricted though her heart beat quickly.

"You _are_ a stubborn one, Ms. Oxton." But the words were tender, and Lena smiled, reaching out to cup Amélie's cheek.

Amélie's eyes fluttered closed and her eyebrows made an infinitesimal move toward one another, as if the contact pained her… or as if she were desperately clinging to the vestiges of the night before when they'd been in their own bubble free of consequence.

"Amélie…" Lena whispered, almost without realizing.

Amélie's eyes opened, and Lena winced at the weight of her gaze.

Lena pushed herself up to face her counterpart, withdrawing her hand to better prop herself up to give her sore lower abs a tiny break. "What is it…?"

"Is it wrong for me to love you so quickly…?" Amélie looked down at her hand, still on the covers above Lena's thigh. "I thought that… last night might… shake loose some of the more confusing feelings, but… Now I just want to hop in and see what happens." She laughed, and the movement tugged up the corner of her mouth briefly, flashing her pearly teeth that contrasted so heavily by her purple painted lips. "Maybe you've rubbed off on me more than I thought."

Lena forced a smile, but it was disingenuous at best and a grimace at worst. "I fell in love with you really fucking fast, love."

Amélie's wan smile made her face seem even more hollow. "We can't fix each other, chérie."

Lena shook her head. "No, we can't." And saying the words made Lena realize one thing that sparked a timid yet hopeful fire in her chest. "But we can be here for each other while we get better, right?"

This time, Amélie smiled at her more confidently. "We can do that, for sure."

Lena looked over Amélie's exposed body - her patchwork quilt of battered skin. "Do you want to go out today?"

Amélie blinked from the whiplash of changing subjects. "I don't… know if I…"

Lena shrugged and tried to play off her ulterior motive. "We can at any time, and I mean… I've got more money than I honestly know what to do with, and you could use some clothes of your own. Mine fit okay, but my pants can't be comfortable."

Amélie's wolfish smile that followed Lena's sentence made Lena's stomach fill with butterflies and messenger pigeons and riots that all lit fires southward. "Perhaps in a while, but I thought that you rather _liked_ that I wasn't wearing any pants. You didn't have any issues with it last night."

Lena puffed her cheeks out in indignation but broke into giggles. "Hey, I mean… we're still alone for a while. And we're both conveniently naked."

Amélie smiled wider. "You're a lot more forward now than you were eight years ago."

"Listen, Amélie, I just confessed my undying love for you, travelled the world to find you, and boned the shit out of you. I think I can do anything right now."

"Anything you say?"

Lena swallowed and felt her cheeks reaching sun-level heat.

"You're so cute when you blush… I've missed that," Amélie said, sinking back down onto the bed with a smug smile.

"Yeah, well." Lena didn't really have a rebuttal, so she just dove into a kiss with Amélie and let herself get lost for a while.

* * *

Lena pulled herself away from Amélie reluctantly, and Amélie smiled after her.

"What?" Lena asked, feeling a bit exposed and embarrassed.

"You've got a cute butt."

Lena snorted. "Amélie, you've helped me bathe before when I was too atrophied to hardly move. You've seen me naked."

Amélie rolled a lazy shoulder and yawned. "This is true, but I never got to _appreciate_ you."

The way she said the words made Lena's arm hair stand on end, and she scratched her sweaty forearm. Self-consciously. "I think we should probably get moving, though. Zarya and Mei are waiting for me to tell them that we're not going to tear down the house too loud when they're here." Lena rolled her eyes. "Not that they seem to care if anyone's in the house."

Amélie shrugged. "I owe them both an apology anyway."

"Let me… put on a shirt at least. Then I'll call."

Amélie rolled her eyes and stretched out her beautiful, if not battered, body. "Would they fuss if you _didn't_ have a shirt?"

"Amélie, I'm learning so much about you." Lena shook her head, but her grin was as shit eating as they get. "Voyeurism? Who knew?"

Amélie just smiled back with a butterfly inducing wink.

Lena was almost taken aback by how… _easy_ it was between them. When there was no one else around, they fell into an easy pattern that had almost no seams or bumps. No hardship. No pressure.

It was too easy to forget what they'd gone through together, but it was all too difficult to forget the real source of Lena's unease. Gérard.

Reinhardt's ring felt heavy on her finger.

She could forget Gérard for a time - the time she could stay busy with Amélie, but the memories only came rushing back along with a river of guilt when they paused for more than a minute. Lena shook her head and rustled through her drawers to pull out an old Overwatch shirt that she ironically bought at a grocery store and pulled it on. She still didn't bother with any pants right away.

Her phone beeped in a way that suggested that the call couldn't go through, and Lena frowned, a growing discomfort sprouting within her.

"No answer?"

Lena shook her head and pulled a pair of men's boxers from another drawer. "Pull the covers up if you're embarrassed. I'm about to call on someone else."

Amélie did so without protest, her watchful eyes still locked on Lena, and Lena thought she could feel the intensity of her gaze, looking for approval - looking for weakness - looking for… something.

"Hey, A!" Lena called only slightly louder than she spoke.

Athena blinked up on the television on the opposite wall from Lena's bed. "Yes, Lena?"

Her voice sounded too amused for Lena to keep a completely placid expression. "What, do I have something on my face?"

"Just Amélie." Lena's jaw dropped open and she suddenly couldn't remember how to words at all. "What do you need, Lena?"

"I, uh… I." She shook her head and swallowed hard. "That was… uncalled for."

Athena shrugged her omnic shoulders but her whole posture seemed to convey amusement. "I thought it was hilarious."

Amélie snorted from the bed and sat up, pulling up the covers along with her rising body. Lena shot her a petulant frown, which only made her companion smile wider.

"Yeah, anyway, I wondered where Zarya and Mei were."

Athena fell silent and motionless for a time, not even floating on the screen, just going completely still like an image rather than a projected feed. "They should be on their way back to base now. That's what they said last night."

"My call wouldn't go through. Lots of static and then cuts out."

Athena tilted her head and fell silent for a moment. "That's… odd… I can't seem to contact them either." She stopped floating again and froze on the screen. With quiet shock and uncertainty, she continued, "There's something wrong with my system. There's an overload." A pause, and Lena turned to Amélie, whose already pale face paled even more. "Something's overloading my systems? I… didn't notice? There's… something blocking me?"

Lena didn't really need to ask Amélie what she thought. Her face said everything and the way she clutched the covers so tightly to her body only said even more. Her fear was nearly palpable in the tensely quiet air. Amélie shakily huffed out a breath she'd been holding and gave Lena a glance before turning back to Athena.

"An overload or static?"

Athena said nothing. "Static. It's like… my branch connecting to the rest of the team has been…"

"Obscured," Amélie finished with such finality that Lena's heart sank.

Her heart quavered and ached. Static? Obscured signal? No triangulation?

"What is it?" Lena asked, knowing full well what that sounded like. She and Athena had encountered it in the pub where Lena and her mysterious stranger met.

Amélie jumped up, pulling the covers with her and wrapping them around her bare skin. "It's _Her_."

Lena didn't question it and instead began moving as quickly as Amélie. "What do we do about it?"

Amélie didn't answer. She just looked down at the scuffed hardwood floors before closing her eyes and breathing deeply.

Athena's screen grew grey. "I need to conserve my systems so that I can provide the most protection to the house."

Lena jumped as Amélie dropped the sheet from her naked body, exposing her bruises of pleasure and pain, and pulled on some of Lena's ill-fitting clothes. Her eyes were as flat and hard as obsidian, and her jaw was as hard as her eyes. Lena shivered when Amélie made eye contact with her, and she saw in Amélie's eyes how shallowly Widowmaker slept under the surface.

The wildness therein… A golden ocean of uncertainty and hatred clashing with waves of guilt and fear. Widowmaker's anger. Amélie's resentment. They were harmonizing, but at what cost?

The weight on Lena's chest matched her sternum and pressed into her lungs like a stamp, and she smacked in an effort to wet her tongue enough so that it wouldn't turn to dust if she started to talk. "Amélie?"

"Yes?"

"Why is she here?" Lena couldn't even pretend to understand the sudden turn of events.

Of course something had to come along and fuck it all up. Things were going too well to keep going like that for long. That had been Lena's whole life. Why would now be any different?

 _Focus._

Amélie's response didn't make focusing any easier. "She's got me where she wants me. She's got all of us exactly where she wants us." Amélie shone through a little more in her shaky breath than in her Widowmaker-esque words. "She wouldn't show herself so theatrically if we weren't ripe for picking." More evenly - more chillingly - Amélie spoke again. "There's nothing we can do that she hasn't already foreseen. Already _planned_."

The two of them stood in Lena's room, tense and coiled tightly enough to explode in a burst of motion in an instant.

"What do we do?"

"We wait."

"What do you think she wants?"

"All of us in the same place, of course. She's probably captured your friends in an attempt to make them feel safe. She's manipulating everything to better herself, and don't you _ever_ forget it."

Lena swallowed and shifted her grip on the pistol she'd retrieved from her sock drawer.

* * *

There was no telling how long the two of them stood there ready to strike, shoot, or simply go mad from waiting in the hell that was the interim. The in between of languid kisses and the anticipation of a fight.

What were they even fighting? How could they fight when it was one person controlling all of her friends and family? How could she endanger them again?

Lena felt her teeth grinding together before she was even aware, and her fingers began to go numb. She started to slip in between reality and the hellscape of her mind. She started to fade into her thoughts.

A feverish hand clasped her wrist, and the ever tightening bubble in her chest burst in a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. That touch brought her back from a brink - Amélie always brought her back. Amélie always led the way back. Lena glanced at Amélie, who looked ready to say something, when a tremendous thud and crash rang out and made the house tremble with its thunder.

The two spared a glance at each other.

"What do we do?" asked Lena too shakily to be taken seriously.

Amélie shifted and plucked Lena's other pistol off the dresser. "We kill the witch if we can. If we can't, we do our best. Avoid contact. She has… ways."

Lena thought back to the way she'd busted Sombra picking pockets in public places by giving people light touches and seemingly friendly gestures. She couldn't imagine what else those cybernetic hands could do, but she didn't think she wanted to find out no matter how alluring she was.

"We can't just go in guns blazing."

"D'accord."

Lena just shook her head. "Okay, follow me, I guess."

Amélie nodded.

Lena cracked the door to hear the sounds of laughter and some groans. Upstairs, she could hear Winston rustling around and creaking in his hammock. _When did he get home?_

She put the gun in the waistband of her pants and pushed the door open wider, thinking to blink over and recall to assess the situation and give that assessment to Amélie to try to figure out what to do next. Sombra might not even be in the mix yet.

She took an apprehensive step and instinctively willed herself forward, clenching her eyes shut and taking one step to propel herself forward through her own timeline, but she stumbled, a spiderweb of flame licking her chest and spreading. Her ears burned and rang like she'd been boxed in both simultaneously, and her world shifted sideways - no, she _fell_ sideways.

Her brain couldn't catch up with her body and just filled with question marks, too stunned to form any intelligible questions.

Amélie shouted her name in a shrill, tremulous key, but it was too far away in the terrible ringing in her ears.

Lines seared her ankles and wrists in manacle bands, and her fingers grew chillingly numb as the intensity of being consumed by flames grew unbearable. She tried to slap the sensation away, thinking back to the time Anna had shot her in the leg - that similar burning, but so so much worse. She barely managed to push herself off of the floor and attempt to holster her weapon before her hand, which shook so badly, went to her very plainly, primary source of the flame that consumed her - her unencumbered chest. A vacuum of nothing but sheer horror ripped through her, and she thought she might be screaming. But no sound came out.

She couldn't feel her fingers.

Her world went black then white then a maelstrom of horrible prismatic colors that threatened to consume her. That _did_ consume her. Whispers met her ears.

Whispers without mouths.

Whispers without words.

Whispers without voices.

Transparent color.

" _I can't get warm."_

Despairing cold.

Debilitating heat.

Light to blind.

Dark to drown.

Amélie falling into her arms in the snowy streets of King's Row.

The blue-white warp that pulled her into the In Between.

The child on the train. Marie.

 _I thought I was your family, too_.

The cold and hot nothingness of void.

Emily's hands on her face with their last angry kiss eight years ago.

Now.

Then.

Time didn't really matter.

Not when everything happened at once.

Emily's hands on her face. Amélie's hands. No, wait. Yes. Amélie.

 _Amélie…_

Lena looked down to see Winston lumbering around with a wide grin in the attic upstairs.

Upstairs?

" _What this does is keeps you rooted in one place because of the way it's spread over key points on your upper body. The way your chronal accelerator works-"_

" _It's a large, focused point."_

" _So this is like. Several weaker points to do the same thing."_

" _The only drawback that I see is that you cannot manipulate your time stream with these. That would break them and…"_

Void.

Time.

A flash of ice cold flesh against her own.

A spear to her heart in the daggers of Widowmaker's glare.

The _misery_ as she looked upon Gérard's corpse.

The jerking, dying breaths of the boy she'd watch bite down on cyanide.

Time…

Amélie stood over her with tears streaming down her bruised cheeks.

Lena couldn't move. Couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe.

" _You're just so… selfish,"_ whispered the light with no mouth.

A formless figure shifted in the darkness, a mere outline of a thing only seen out of the corner of her eye. " _We can't just kill a child!"_

Her chest hurt.

Chest?

She had no chest.

She had nothing.

She was nothing.

She was nowhere.

She did not exist.

" _No! No, no, no, no,_ _ **no**_ _!"_

A knife.

 _The_ knife.

She watched Amélie Lacroix's eyes turn upward, making eye contact with her before swinging her knife down again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.

I love you.

I love you...

" _Look what they made me,"_ she whispered before bestowing a gentle kiss onto Gérard's lips.

" _Amélie_ ," whispered her own lips from afar.

Explosions of dust and concrete and brick. Explosions of pleasure. Explosions of color.

A power vacuum. No. A just a vacuum.

 _What's the difference?_

 _ **This is the Between, and it does not care.**_


	52. Darling

Amélie looked down in horror at the spot where Lena had been only a fraction of a second before. In that span, her mind - already having trouble focusing on concepts - could hardly comprehend what she'd seen. First, Lena had taken a few steps like she was about to take off in a jog; second, she blurred around the edges, almost making a corona of blue-white light outlining her slim figure; third, Lena stumbled, the aura growing more intense; fourth, the pendant on Lena's chest matched the aura but grew into a miniature sun on her sternum; fifth, she opened her mouth and moved her hand to her chest; sixth, she was simply… gone.

Her body was moving long before her brain seemed to kick into gear, and somewhere far, far away, Amélie thought she heard Lena screaming. That howl of anguish made Her start rustling in the detritus covered loam in Amélie's mind too fervently to be an absent inclination. Amélie clenched her fists though her mental haze. She couldn't afford to lose control. Not here. Not now. Lena needed Amélie, not Widowmaker.

Her knees buckled when the fear of Widowmaker collided in a horrible storm with the fear of losing Lena, and her knees crashed against the hardwood in a jolt of pain that pushed Widowmaker's clawlike hand back underground. She still wasn't completely in control of herself and found herself whispering, calling for Lena to come back. Begging. She patted the floorboards uselessly as if they would open up to reveal Lena laying there with a smug smile on her face, a quip at the ready, but it was only starting to feel like she'd come this far only for Lena to be taken from her.

A raspy, broken voice whispered from close by, "Lena, please."

She realized it was her own.

She couldn't lose Lena.

Not now.

Not _ever_.

Chattering in the next room over reached her ears filled with uncomfortable laughter and voices that she too readily recognized with the exception of two. Her brain told her to call for help, but her body was frozen, reversing the feeling of before like her brain and body and thrown on the brakes and gone in reverse. She called out, but her voice was barely there, strained to the max by her anxiety and fear. Lena's body flickered back through Amélie's hands and forearms with a horrified look on her face; her eyes moved quickly side to side without seeing, and her body was transparent. Her chest rose and fell at a rate that seemed… inhuman. Too fast. Too, too fast.

"Someone get over here!" Her throat felt close to ripping from the force with which she yelled.

Four sets of feet pounded into the hall from what Widowmaker's training had ingrained in her mind, and Amélie looked up a second before they rounded the corner, afraid to remove her hands from the place on the ground and afraid to keep them there.

"What the _fuck_ is happening?" Amélie heard Widowmaker snap through her own lips.

"Move your hands!" The blonde doctor exclaimed.

Amélie pushed herself back, and Lena disappeared again into a white pinpoint before blinking out of existence.

"She's flickering," rumbled a strangely calm, sage voice from the back of the crowd. Winston.

"How can you be so fucking _calm_?" Shouted a much higher voice than the others - that would be Hana, Amélie was sure, but she couldn't find humor in the small girl's panic.

Widowmaker thrashed violently in her tomb at the plea - a child's plea.

"She's still holding onto the point." The large gorilla shouldered his way forward, and Amélie felt herself snarl with Widowmaker's rage.

Her Lena would not be removed by someone she didn't even know other than in pictures. Winston paused, and the mad doctor spoke in her phony calm. "Amélie, please. We need to make sure we can stabilize her."

"Touch her, and I _will_ kill you."

It wasn't a threat.

It was a promise.

Jack pushed the fallen angel to the side more gently than Widowmaker ever would have, and the fleeting fantasy of shoving Angela's skull through the nearest wall darted in and out of Amélie's mind more quickly than she thought possible.

"Amélie, I know you're scared." Amélie snorted but it wasn't out of amusement. It was an angry bull, goaded with spears and sharp sticks and ready to charge. "When she flickers back, we have to stabilize her _immediately_. You know this." His voice did some to ebb the cold fire that burned her aching heart to numbness. "You can stay there, but you have to help us help her." A pause, and Amélie looked up at the man in the mask. He wasn't treating her like a villain. "Can you do that?"

Amélie refused to move or speak, save for a nod. She didn't trust herself to do anything more.

The blue-white light of Lena's hell flickered again, and Lena flashed into being but was still, rigid, and unbreathing. Amélie moved without thinking, putting her hands on Lena's face and throat, trying to feel for some feeble pulse. To her relief, the overly hot flesh on Lena's neck throbbed in a more-or-less steady rhythm. Amélie forced her eyes away from Lena's unconscious body and stared intently at Jack Morrison to seek his worth.

"Let's get them all moving, yeah? Before she goes out again."

Winston blinked. "Amélie, don't let go of her even when I pick her up. She's… holding on."

Amélie couldn't respond for Widowmaker clenching her jaw until she thought her teeth would crack, but she didn't stop touching Lena's skin. She didn't want to.

A fearfully calm thought crossed through her mind.

 _When she's gone, you have nothing to live for. Not even Gérard would deny you that. Not the Gérard of life, and not the Gérard of dreams. Your love will have killed more than you can bear, and when she's gone, then you can leave. Let her go, Amélie. Let her go, so you can have peace._

She wasn't sure where the thought had come from and tried to shake it loose from her mind, but it was a vice on her fragile thoughts, cracking them to nearly shattering - nearly convincing her to let go of Lena's dainty wrist.

 _You've come this far_ , another part of her urged desperately, and the fervent voice kindled a fire in her heart that the calm voice almost doused entirely. _You can save her. You can save them all._

And that was enough for Amélie.

She could never undo what she'd done to so many people - she could never undo how many she'd killed and maimed and swindled, but she could save seventeen. She could save eighteen.

She could save the others and maybe even herself.

* * *

After what felt like hours, Amélie was allowed to let go of Lena, but something despite the fatigue she felt from being so tightly wound didn't let her let go. She didn't think she wanted to let go. They'd finally been able to wiggle Lena's rigid body into her chonal harness and tried examine her, but Amélie was loathe to part with Lena for even a second. Once they managed to convince Amélie to back up just enough for Angela to glance her over and give her a scan, Amélie hovered just behind the mad doctor and waited, watching her fingers for any suspicious movement - watching her face for any betraying twitch - watching her breathing to make sure that Angela wasn't hiding some piece of crucial information.

Widowmaker was still.

Her fingers itched to feel Lena's skin again. She needed to feel that Lena was there and real and that this wasn't some horrible nightmare where she'd just dissolve in Amélie's fingers. She needed to be sure of something. _Anything_. Memories and fears and horrifying scenarios just played over and over in her head.

 _You will lose her eventually. You know how she left you in Heerenveen. You think she won't do it again?_

After the examination, the doctor, with her lips pressed into a thin, white line, glaced at Amélie with encouraging words on the tip of her tongue, Amélie was sure, but Amélie shook her head. She didn't want the doctor's hollow promises.

Angela left after that.

Amélie sat alone with Lena now. Mostly alone. Athena hovered on the screen closest to the unconscious Lena, and Amélie couldn't help but glare at the AI from time to time. It wasn't that she had ill will toward the artificial intelligence. It was just that she hardly trusted anyone right now with Lena being in such a precarious position.

"She will be fine, Amélie. She just needs to rest."

It was the first thing she'd said in the nearly two hours they'd been sitting together.

Amélie snorted and shifted in her comfortable seat but watched the steady rise and fall of Lena's chest. Her skin was a of a deathly pallor except for the spiderweb burns from her jewellry breaking on her skin, and under her eyes were stained dark purple with the strain she'd endured from being torn asunder.

"I could have lost her," Amélie said simply.

"But you didn't."

Amélie felt a flash of hot anger build up and quickly dissipate in a fraction of a second. "I didn't. You're right…" She took a breath and leaned closer to Lena. "Why did this have to happen so soon after…"

"Sometimes, things test our will. Sometimes, situations strain us to see who we really are. And…" Amélie looked up to see the omnic staring at her with a softer expression, but she wasn't sure how Athena managed it with an immobile face. "Sometimes, Ms. Amélie, things just suck."

Amélie snorted again in surprise and couldn't stifle the fraction of a smile her face made without her willing it. The two sat in more comfortable silence, watching Lena rustle occasionally under her blanket in a fitful sleep. Amélie rested her hand on Lena's scorching forehead and frowned, but Lena quieted her discontented slumber.

"I think she's running a fever…"

Athena said nothing back for a moment but nodded. "It's climbing. I think it's just the bug she picked up from the airport, but I suppose I should call Angela to make sure it's nothing more sinister."

Amélie hesitated. "Alright…"

Athena paused. "Amélie, you know that Angela is a vital part of this team, yes?"

Amélie cursed herself for getting too chummy with the AI too quickly, but on another level, she thought that Athena might have the least ulterior motives when it came to Lena. After all, Lena and Athena had been friends long before Amélie had even come into Lena's life.

Her scalp itched at Athena's comment. "I know, but it doesn't mean that I have to like her."

Athena sighed. "It would just make my life a little easier if you could convince Angela that you're not actually still a sleeper."

Amélie glanced back from Lena's pallid skin to Athena's shiny form. "She still thinks of me that way?"

Athena… blushed? It was a wild thing that Amélie almost didn't register until it was long over. "I've… said too much. My apologies."

Amélie shook her head. "I've not been the most cooperative, and I _suppose_ threatening to kill them all didn't go over so well."

Athena rolled a shoulder. "Jack seemed to understand, and Jesse admired it… at least a little even though he would never tell you." Athena paused again. "I think… that there are more people on this team who want to believe you're back with us than those who do not, Amélie."

Amélie just sat for a moment, feeling a cold hand clawing at her heart and mind - the cold hand that always came groping around when insecurity hit. When fear took over even for the briefest moment.

Amélie swallowed her fears though, the effort being a loud thing even to her own ears. "Athena, as one of Lena's oldest friends, I trust your judgment."

Athena blinked out, and within a minute or two, Angela Ziegler, followed by no one, scaled the ladder to Winston's quarters, the wood creaking and popping under nearly every footfall. Amélie didn't turn to glare at her and focused instead on the gentle slope of Lena's nose. On the way her pretty pink lips parted. On the way her freckles seemed to stand out on her skin despite her being so pale everywhere else.

She wanted to kiss those freckles.

Angela appeared in the corner of her vision, her hands clasped tightly in front of herself to the point where the knuckles of her left hand were white with strain. Amélie thought she could smell the sweat on her skin - an anxious sweat. The sweet kind of sweat that they all had before they met their end. The sick sweat right before death.

Amélie closed her eyes and took a long breath.

"Angela," she said calmly, and she was glad that the word was in her own voice instead of the intruder's.

"Amélie," she said, but her voice was stiff and prim.

"We cannot dance around one another, Angela, not when she's unwell. I'll take up whatever qualms I have with you at another time, but she needs you now."

Widowmaker almost emerged when Angela let out her shaky breath that she'd been holding and approached. Amélie pushed the intruder's head under her mind's otherwise still waters until she stopped struggling, but Widowmaker still laughed, whispering, _You're still becoming more like me_ , before going quiet again.

"When you're done with her," Another breath to wash away the nausea of Widowmaker's words. "I… would like to talk to you. Alone."

Angela looked down at Amélie, and Amélie did her damndest to look as nonthreatening as possible, but she held Angela's gaze. She would not back down. Not then. Not now. Not ever again.

Angela didn't reply and instead moved closer to Lena, her eyebrows knitting as she checked various monitors hooked up to the frail thing on the counter. Amélie tried not to stare, but the blonde woman leaning over Lena had regret in her posture and sincerity in her eyes. Her mouth moved quickly, and Swiss-German met Amélie's ears, not that she could understand it, but still, the words carried a weight in them that turned the air palpable. Angela's hand lingered on Lena's forehead, though Amélie was certain that wasn't the most _medical_ way of taking someone's temperature, and she frowned, eyebrows knitting together.

Amélie's intent focus snapped like peanut brittle and she jumped when Angela began speaking again. "It doesn't seem to be anything… detrimental. Athena said she was sick when she came in yesterday, correct?"

Amélie just nodded, her heart still in her throat.

Angela sighed with a smile of mothers and shook her head. "Silly girl." A little louder, she continued. "I'm just glad she's alright. I… When I saw the two of you… I…"

"Thought I did it," Amélie finished for her with no malice or bitterness in her voice.

It was just hard, simple fact.

Angela shook her head, her messy blonde hair brushing over her shoulders back and forth - back and forth. "No, that wasn't my first thought. I thought that… She wasn't thinking and tried to throw herself into action."

Amélie sat back in her chair, which was beginning to put a strain on her lower back. "Oh?"

Angela's face smoothed from the genuine sincerity that carefully drew her eyebrows together and made one corner of her mouth tug down into something that Amélie was certain she'd seen on the faces of Talon doctors. "The suspicion came later."

"Ah."

Angela offered Amélie a weak smile. "So… are you back for good?"

Amélie looked back at Lena, unable to stand looking at the doctor's analytical eyes and her facade of sincerity. "As long as She stays good and I stay in control, yes."

Angela sighed and leaned against the table where Lena slept. Amélie folded her arms and crossed one leg over the other at the knee. "Is she helping?"

Amélie blinked and began to feel incredibly uncomfortable. "What do you mean?"

"Last time I saw you, you were… not you. Not completely."

Amélie just listened to the doctor, watching her facial expression carefully in order to detect any falseness, but there was none.

"I saw you… flickering in and out. I would see _you_ , Amélie. When you looked at Lena, when you smiled… When she would speak to you. Then I would see that… _thing_ come back and smother you right before all of our eyes. There was nothing that could stop her from coming back and taking you out."

Some tingling sensation in the back of Amélie's mind made her want to scratch the back of her head, but she rubbed her neck instead. It was a nervous gesture, and she knew it as well as Angela.

"Now… Now I come back from a bloodbath in Brazil with a woman I've never met telling me all of the secrets we've tried so desperately to keep, and she says that she can help you… _fix_ you, and I want to believe her, but I know I can't." She paused and looked at Amélie, her eyes searching for something. "Do you know why I can't, Amélie?"

But Amélie just waited for Angela to respond.

"You have to overcome this. You have to overcome _her_ ," Angela Ziegler bit her lip and looked up, her eyes glassy. "I don't want Lena to get hurt, and she's already gone through so much to get you back. If… If she gets hurt…"

"You made sure back in Florence that I know where you stand with me, _Angela_ ," Amélie spat, her words dripping with more hideous venom than she intended.

Angela shook her head. "You aren't disposable, Amélie. You're not a _thing_ to be thrown away. You're not _expendable_." More vehemently, Angela turned, and Amélie's eye was drawn to the strength in the posture - the sureness in the set of her jaw and in the hardness of her eyes. "You're valuable to her. You're her _world_ , and I'm not about to treat you like you're nothing, even if it's just for her. I used to be your _friend_ , Amélie. I don't know if you remember that part. I don't know if you remember the nights we had where we would go drink and laugh. I don't know if you remember me _begging_ you to take Lena in once you met her and became friends. I don't know if I could ever be your friend again because of what's happened to us all, but I know that I can't stand between you two, and…" She sighed, her glassy eyes turning full on tearful. "I don't want to stop either of you from just being _happy_."

Amélie sat still for a time, unspeaking. The mental static that she had from all that time before - those unclear times and the parts of her life that she still couldn't quite grasp - became a little more apparent. She barely remembered Angela from her life Before.

Angela spoke again, her gently trembling voice pulling Amélie from her introspection. "But I am so _scared_ that Lena's going to end up dead, and you're going to have the knife in your hand."

When Amélie spoke, she felt the thick fog of uncertainty and discomfort clogging her throat. She spoke, but there was so little left in her that could care about the woman in front of her that she wasn't even entirely sure what she was saying until it was already out. "I can't remember shit, Angela."

Angela blinked, tears jumping from her eyes in an extremely similar way to Lena, and Amélie couldn't stop herself from laughing. It wasn't a normal laugh. It was quickly mounting hysteria.

Amélie rolled her head back and let herself laugh. "My memory is as unreliable as Lena is headstrong, and you think I can remember details like that." Painful tears eeked out of the corners of her eyes. "Shit, Angela, I'm _dying_ , and you want me to _remember_ you?" She scrubbed at her face, but the giggles wouldn't stop and turned again into full, gut-wrenching laughs. She knew how this looked from the outside. She knew she looked out of her goddamn mind. She didn't _care_. "Something is so very wrong with me, and the only thing I can think about is _her_. She's all I've been able to think about since I came back to myself." She jerked her head at Lena who was beginning to rouse from the table a little more insistently. "She's all I can remember. Her. Gérard. The time with them separately and together." She heaved a breath and snorted before trying to rope in her giggles. "Talon stole my life - no. _Reyes_ stole my life from me, and you think that my top priority is remembering _you_?" Amélie snorted and nearly spit on the floor before remembering that the big guy would probably have to clean it up. "Casse-toi, Angela. Casse-toi."

Angela's tears dried and her eyes reflected a harsh sadness of reality. "Gabriel stole my life, too."

"I urged him against it, that I remember," Amélie still had a giggle or two just under her diaphragm and they escaped like bursting soap bubbles. "I told him he was a fool. I told him to keep his disgusting hands off of you. I couldn't save you, Angela." She snorted. "You couldn't even save yourself. Why do you think you can save any of us?"

The bitter rage in Angela's voice drew Amélie and Widowmaker's attentions alike. "Because he has nothing to lose, and I have everything. If he wins - if I _fail_ , I lose everything I've given my life for."

"Then do something about it, chérie."

The challenge settled between them - a proposition and someone too willing and eager to fight and prove themselves. Amélie set the bait, smiling like she'd won the overall battle as the Widowmaker in her mind reeled in horror. Angela would take that bait. Angela would do _anything_ to prove herself. She'd do anything to keep her ego intact.

Angela frowned at Amélie for a time, and Amélie didn't bother looking weak for the doctor. She wasn't going to dance around this woman. She knew why Reyes hated her even though she couldn't quite place her own rage and terror. Every time she looked at Angela, she felt a visceral desire to lunge at her - to make her stop breathing her annoying little breaths - to make her never speak again in her ridiculous placating voice - to make her _die_.

Angela surprised Amélie, though. She took a breath, closed her eyes, mouthed something that Amélie couldn't quite place, and spoke again in a low tone devoid of all diplomacy. In her voice a thing of darkness bloomed. Amélie knew that darkness well. Spite. Fear. Anger. Rebellion.

Widowmaker quelled in the presence of this Angela, and Amélie smiled a chilly little smile at Angela in Widowmaker's stead.

"Tell me your degeneration symptoms," Angela breathed, nostrils flared. "As soon as Lena's off this table, I'm going to prove myself to you."


	53. Die Young

Lena woke up feeling like shit.

Her whole body ached like she'd been attached to four horses and pulled in all directions, thrown in an incinerator, and then glued back together with glitter glue. Her throat felt like she'd never had water in her _life_ , and her bones burned the same way they had when she'd gone through her last growth spurt at fourteen.

"Lena!"

Lena turned but her neck creaked in protest. No part of her was spared from feeling thoroughly pummeled. When she spoke, her voice was only a wheezing whisper. She swallowed the nails in her throat and coughed and tried again. "Hey, Hana."

The smaller girl beamed back at Lena, but something pulled at the corners of her mouth and the creases of her eyes. Nothing disingenuous. Maybe… concerned was more the word.

Lena tried to sound casual and not like she was laying on an operating table. "What's up?"

"Well, I mean, what specifically?" Her grin grew more sincere. "I could be an ass and say the ceiling, if you wanted."

 _Ass_ , Lena affirmed to herself with an eyeroll. "You tell me."

Hana rolled a shoulder and started counting off on her fingers. "Well, you're fine and your organs are in the right places. We're all home now, even Lu and Satya, but Sombra is here, so that adds some issues, especially because Amélie seems dead set on either killing her or making her miserable at the very least, not that I'm particularly fond of her or anything." Lena shivered. "Angela and Mei have been working nonstop with Ana, and Angela plans to scan and operate on Amélie as soon as you're up and moving. Oh, and I'm planning a group activity because no one can _fucking_ work together in the field."

Lena swallowed. "Operate?"

Hana folded her arms and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, of course you'd focus on that. Amélie is degenerating pretty bad, Lena. It's a miracle she's still running, from what Angela says."

Lena watched Hana's hard eyes shift away and how her fingers clenched and unclenched around the fabric of her jacket. "Hey, Hana, uh…"

Hana waved her off. "Don't worry about it. I know I'm second fiddle to her."

"Goddamn, Hana, can you give me like? Two seconds?" Lena rubbed at her eyes until blue and white stars burst to life across her eyelids. "Listen, I've been a real knob to you, but I'm not throwing Amélie away. You're my best friend, Hana. Nothing changes that."

Hana gave Lena a look that Lena didn't quite know how to interpret. Was it fear? Was it anger? Loneliness, maybe. "I just love you, Lena. You're the sister I didn't have until you came along. I'm worried, and I just…" She bit her lip and destroyed any uncertainty Lena had about her gaze. She was scared, but she smiled back at Lena warmly, almost a little embarrassed from the way her face lit up in a feathery blush. "She's really nice when Angela, Sombra, and Jesse aren't in the room."

Lena stifled a smile. "So she's coming along well?"

"As well as she can in a few hours. I think she's a little overwhelmed at all the people in the house, but she's not trying to kill anyone." Hana paused and punched Lena's shoulder gently. "I think I can see why you fell for her."

The smile she was fighting couldn't be contained anymore. "When do you think we could all sit down together?"

Hana frowned but not in displeasure. "After she gets looked at, probably." Lena squirmed as Hana turned her watchful eyes over to her in scrutinous examination but was relieved when Hana spoke again. "C'mon, we shouldn't keep everyone waiting on news about you."

Lena managed her way down the stairs even more stiffly than she thought. Her whole body ached and her bones felt just shy of tearing themselves apart, but this still wasn't the worst she'd ever felt. The first time she'd been thrown into the in between, she could hardly move for weeks. Everything in her body felt… wrong, and every breath felt like torture. This was just a bump in the road or stubbing your toe by comparison.

She hobbled her way into the kitchen where most of the crew sat around and on the bar, even on the little day bed/couch thingy where Angela usually sat and read books in the morning.

"Look who's up," Jack said with a grin, but his eyes were mostly obscured by the most anime glasses glare Lena thought she'd ever seen in real life.

Standing there in her shorts and t-shirt with mussed hair and absolutely no concern for her appearance until she realized she was under inspection, she suddenly felt incredibly self conscious. It wasn't _just_ her appearance that made her nervous, though. As soon as her family could stop worrying about her for two seconds, she went out and almost destroyed herself, even _if_ it was an accident.

 _You're always going to be a problem for them_ , and this time, Lena couldn't ignore the voice that whispered inside her.

Genji, of all people waved her over with a sound of greeting. She looked away from the older man's warm gesture and back at Hana, who was vigorously tapping along on her phone with a scowl. The way her eyebrows knitted together. The way her lip poked out just a bit. The way her eyes grew dark but the way she still managed to look at least a _little_ like a grumpy child. Sometimes she looked so much like Angela that it was spooky. Lena couldn't help but smile to herself.

"What's up?"

Hana shook her head, and though her heart sank a little, Lena didn't ask. If Hana wanted to talk… _She doesn't trust you_.

Lena couldn't ignore that either.

Hana seemed too preoccupied to stick around for long but still wouldn't talk about what was bothering her, and Lena was starting to wonder if she should start pushing for information. The rest of her knew to wait.

Angela and Amélie were nowhere to be seen, but Lena assumed they were prepping for scans of all kinds. She'd been there more than once and bounced on her heels while waiting for Amélie and Angela to reemerge. They didn't all have to talk to each other, but Lena _did_ want to catch up with a few of her friends. Something, though, held her back. It was mostly just that tiny voice in the back of her mind that kept calling her a failure. A disappointment. A flaw in an otherwise well running system.

"Kid, why are you off over there by yourself? Come on over and make yourself comfy." Jesse interrupted the conversational flow patted the spot next to him. "You're actin' mighty jumpy. You okay there?"

Lena laughed it off as naturally as she could, but her voice cracked. "Yeah, just nervous, I guess."

Jesse frowned and leaned against the wall a little more. "C'mon and sit with your weird uncle and his much more 'mah-toor' boyfriendo. It'll do you some good."

Lena couldn't help but laugh a little at the over-exaggeration of the word 'mature,' and conceded. There wasn't much in the way of changing Jesse's mind, anyway, and something in her panged as she remembered the way his metal arm had been encrusted with Amélie's blood only five months ago. She started to wonder when her trust in him had been restored for the most part - maybe when he'd opened up about his own screw ups. Then, it hadn't done much but upset her that he was projecting onto her, but now, she thought that she might have taken some of that to heart. She was still far from forgiving him for what he'd done, but she could tell he was desperately working toward being someone else. Besides, that stunt had almost cost him _and_ Angela their relationships with Lena.

Things still weren't as easy, she didn't think, but she thought that she could try to mend them a little more, especially after her own stunt, which she was beginning to think was just to get back at everyone for not believing in her, but she knew very well that that wasn't the true cause even if it was a side-effect.

Jack leaned across Jesse to hand Lena a mug topped with marshmellows, which she took with a small smile. "Here, kid, drink up. You're white as a goddamn sheet."

Zarya laughed at something, and her cheeks were pink. Mei stretched her legs out in front of her and grinned with such self-amused mischief.

Memory shed light on a half-forgotten fragment from what felt like a thousand years ago. "Oh! Mei, did you want to show me that thing you were talking about?"

Mei's smile faded and her eyes were blank for a time before her face lit up in an even bigger grin than before. "Ah! It would simply… be easier to explain." She looked around for a second. "If no one minds, of course."

Zarya frowned, but her eyes still shone with tears from her laughing. "Kitten, no one will mind. I make sure of this."

Zenyatta's calming giggle was infectious. "Please, Mei, continue. We would all be glad to hear it from the source. Angela has indeed explained, but we think that your insight would be just as helpful, as you are the one who harvested the particles."

Zarya clapped her girlfriend on the shoulder, and Lena snuggled down closer to her weird uncle and Captain Jack. Her crossed leg comfortably touched Rein's perch and Ana's shin. "I will tell the tale of how we fended off the beast!"

"Aleksandra, he was just testing the waters," Mei said practically as she pushed up the bridge her glasses with her middle finger.

Zarya theatrically nudged Mei and shushed her loudly with a fake whisper. " _They_ don't know that!"

Lena sipped on her hot chocolate, wiping off marshmellow fluff from her upper lip with the back of her hand, and listened to Zarya talk about their encounter with Reyes in the snow. She couldn't shove down a shiver or two hearing the story, remembering how he'd almost effectively wiped them out in the clearing all that time ago. If it hadn't been for Jesse and Jack… She didn't want to think about it.

"And then, my _lovely_ girlfriend blasts the bastard with her tank. He seems frozen for a time and then _somehow_ manages to slip away!" Mei rolled her eyes at Aleksandra's clear exaggeration. "But! He leaves behind a bit of himself, yes?"

Lena blinked.

"Jesus, Mei, who knew you were so… scary?" laughed Jesse without any hint of sarcasm in his tone.

Mei blushed and looked down at her hands. "Well, you see, it's not as scary as it sounds."

Ana's gruff laugh caught Lena off guard, and her head snapped up to the older woman to her left. "Mei, you were down with murdering someone who has since been considered immortal, and you're telling _me_ that you didn't just turn into a badass."

Mei's delicate skin nearly turned purple with embarrassment, and when she opened her mouth to speak, a squeaking noise came out before she cleared her throat. "I just wanted to be helpful. That's all."

Zarya punched her girlfriend's arm lightly and dislodged Mei's glasses from their normal spot with a smooch to her cheek. "You _were_ helpful! You went for the kill!"

Mei readjusted her glasses again and smiled. "I guess so! It _did_ get me some of his genetic code, so that's-"

"His what, dear?" Ana asked, but her voice wasn't nearly as warm as her grandmotherly words.

Mei blinked and started turning pink again. "I, uh, I got some of his… floaty bits?"

Ana slurped at her tea and shared a look with Jack, who grunted. "If you just wanted his genes, I know he keeps some of his juice in a sperm bank in Germany."

Lena startled herself with a laugh. Everyone was getting along so… well? Even better than before, it seemed. The imminent danger of everyone going separate ways didn't seem to even be an option at this point, but then again, everyone knew that things were boiling down to a single point - a single battle - terminal fucking velocity.

Maybe they were all just making jokes because they were all afraid.

Mei rolled her eyes. "Jack, please, if I could have done this without endangering my life, I would have."

Lena snorted at the sheer snark in Mei's tone. It wasn't something people saw with any regularity, but it was refreshing. There had been entirely too much seriousness lately, and by lately, Lena meant lately over the last several years.

The sweet, eccentric woman who knitted sweaters at the speed of sound continued, "I got some of the genetically reprogrammed… fluffy stuff? I don't know what to call it. It's like… Hmm… It's like genetic dandruff. It still has his DNA, but it shows a lot more. Genetic dandruff just feels bad to say. Anyway, I can use this to see how we can stabilize his molecules so that he can't escape. We thought we had a way to do that, but now we can be certain."

Lena balked. "Can we do more with it than just that?"

Mei turned with a hardness in her dark eyes. "We can do much more, Lena. We can figure out exactly how to kill him without any extraneous conjecture. We can heal our own wounds at the speed of sound. If done right, we can defy death."

Lena couldn't tear her eyes away from Mei's - her usually kind eyes full of understanding and compassion turned to steel and granite and bone, and Lena suddenly felt very, very small and very, very tired.

Creaking from overhead caught everyone's attention, and the lights dimmed slightly before coming back to full brightness. Lena cast a glance to the first person to make eye contact with her - Zenyatta, and he nodded slowly.

Jack started standing first. "Well, since she's done with the examination, we should probably head up."

Jesse shook his head. "You know Fareeha probably won't let us any further up the stairs than the first step."

Genji shifted. "I'll go see, if you want."

Lena and some of the others looked his way.

Jesse coughed and shook his head. "Now, why would you go on and do that?"

He shrugged. "Maybe Amélie would be less self-conscious if there were someone more like her to come check."

"Or we let Lena go," offered Reinhardt, who had been unusually silent up until this point, but then again, he was always willing to let other people tell their tales and knew how to wait his turn.

Lena started wondering how she could feel so comfortable around him and Ana when she'd abandoned them only a short time after their arrival.

She wondered how Reinhardt and Ana could be so kind to her - so loving - when she'd done so much to hurt her family.

She wondered what was going to happen now that they were all getting along.

Happy.

"I do not think that would be wise, in my personal opinion," interjected the quiet voice of Zenyatta. "If we show that only Lena is willing to make moves and assurances, we may never prove our true intentions toward Amélie." He glanced at Jesse. "Well… most of our intentions…"

Jesse grunted and jostled Lena, making her nearly spill her hot chocolate all over herself. "I ain't like that no more, Zenny boy. After Heerenveen… Well, I feel kinda bad about everything I did…"

Genji nodded deeply toward Jesse, his eyes sharp and knowing. "This is a good way to let her know that we want to trust her."

Jack grunted but nodded, sitting back down. "Someone go get the purple chick in the basement, then. She freaks me out a little."

Lena stood for that. "I'll go."

But Ana put her hand on Lena's shoulder, meeting her gaze with an intense eye. "Are you sure you're good to go alone?"

Lena shrugged. "I'll grab Hana on the way."

The older woman nodded and let go of her steel trap grip with a wary look in her eye. Now that Amélie was home, Ana was going to have to let Angela fix her other one.

Lena moseyed down the hall, too keenly hearing them talking about what a close call this had all been. Talking about her. Talking about her recklessness…

No, they weren't talking about that. No. They were glad to have her back.

Right?

Lena raised a hand to knock on Hana's door and nearly punched Lúcio in the face as he pulled the door open at the exact moment Lena's arm went on a downswing. Instead, she just grazed him as he turned his face.

"Woah! Lena! Hey!" he rubbed his cheek with a massive smile with the intensity of ten thousand suns. It was an infectious thing.

"Hey, Lúcio. Hope I wasn't interrupting anything. I actually wanted to steal Hana for a minute." She felt a little weird being on the outs with anyone - not exactly the outs, but she definitely wasn't on the in crowd with Lúcio and Satya. "I wanted to go talk to our… guest."

Lúcio blew out a big breath and sagged a little, the hydraulics of his fancy pants hissing slightly. "That lady is messed up, but yeah, I can see why you'd want a chaperone."

Satya poked her head into view through the crack and waved at Lena with a warm smile. She was curled comfortably on Hana's couch with a fuzzy white robe wrapped around her like a blanket or a cape.

Lúcio didn't say anything for a second before slapping himself on the head. "Oh! I'm sorry! Come on in!"

Lena smiled at the human incarnation of sunshine, and thanked him before walking in to find the room the cleanest it had probably ever been.

Hana, who was vigorously in the middle of a match online, started yelling and threw down her controller. "Stupid fucking dorks can't take any instructions! How am I supposed to keep fans like that! They let me die!" She made a sound like a wolf and a crocodile had an unfortunate baby who'd been tossed in a woodchipper. "I _never_ die! I _can't_ die! I'm D. va! I'm Hana fucking Song!"

Lena was torn between awe and terror for a few seconds, completely paralyzed by the Hana she hadn't seen in several months. Hana hadn't felt up to even playing simple games, and now she was sitting there yelling at a screen with more actual anger than Lena had ever seen. Then, she did something that Lena had _definitely_ never actually seen. Hana left the match early.

"I hate this," Hana muttered, and Satya gave Lena a look that could only be concerned. Or pissed. She wasn't sure which one, but she _thought_ it was concern. That was just Satya's face.

"Hey, Hana?" Lena said, but it came out like a question.

Hana turned, and her cheeks were patchy and red. "What?"

Lena's sinking feeling turned to a black hole, sucking out any potential good feelings. "Wanna… run an errand with me?"

"Don't fucking see why not. I'm not good at anything else apparently." She shoved herself back, her chair's plastic wheels groaning, and stomped over to Lena with glassy eyes.

Lena shot a look back to Lúcio and Satya, who offered their own sympathetic glances in response, before she closed the door behind Hana and herself.

"So…" Lena started. "What was that about?"

"Nothing. Fucking nothing." Hana's arms held on tightly to herself as if trying to hold her ribcage together.

"Do you wanna go rough up a creep with me?"

Hana barked a laugh, and Lena pretended like she didn't see Hana scrubbing tears from her eyes. "Fuck yeah, dude."


	54. Cigarette Daydreams

Hana didn't want to talk. She didn't want to really do anything. It had happened as soon as she got home and got still for a few seconds - the memory of her souped up self-detonation in Brazil and the screams of the damned. Those that _she'd_ damned. And that was the worst part. She could talk herself out of everything - out of the guilt of killing innocents, out of the guilt of storming a city like she was a part of this great organization still standing that she'd admired since childhood, out of the guilt that she was responsible for all of this. But… Lena managed to swoop in and fuck up her perfectly good self-loathing and pity. Now she had anxiety.

Lena always knew when something was wrong, and Hana wished that Lena would just straight up ask what it was rather than let her come to her own confession. She wanted Lena to prompt her so badly so that she could just get it off of her chest, but she knew as well as she knew Lena that that just wouldn't happen. Lena was doing what was _right_ what was _noble._ And Hana hated it.

She was _jealous_ of Lena and her sense of self-preservation. She was _jealous_ of Lena's destructive habits and how she was _apparently_ overcoming them. She was _jealous_ of Amélie because Lena was...

"Why are we going to rough up Sombra again?" She asked to distract herself from the horrible swirl of guilt that cranked up again. She was perfectly happy in a loving relationship with two other people, so why should she be _jealous_ of Amélie for having Lena?

 _Because you wanted to take care of her when the other thing wanted to kill her._

It seemed like a logical answer, but she pushed the thought out of her mind. She'd never known Amélie formerly Lacroix, the loving dancer/dance instructor who was more than simply compassionate. She'd only met Widowmaker, the ruthless killer and terrifying assassin.

"I don't like her very much," answered Lena simply (mimicking Hana's own thoughts about Amélie… Widowmaker? Amé-maker?) with a grave expression before cracking a smile at Hana. "Nah, Angela and Amélie are done, and we thought that we might should go get Sombra for like… tech stuff."

"Tech stuff," Hana repeated before feeling the corners of her mouth try to go upward. She couldn't stay mad at Lena. Not for something stupid and insignificant that she was struggling with. "You're one of the smartest people I know, but you still do that."

Lena shrugged and opened the door to the downstairs. "I'm smart about planes, but I'm about as dumb as a box of hammers when it comes to biomechanics and mechanised organisms. I can make something go fast, but I can't fix a person, that's for sure, or else I would have patched myself up years ago."

Hana's heart squeezed. "Yeah, I think I get what you mean. I'm good at coding and games, but not much else."

Lena paused before continuing down the stairs to the general living area. "That's not true. You're a damn good pilot and you're excellent in the field."

Hana looked away from Lena's intense brown eyes. They always intimidated her… or something. The queasiness that boiled up in her stomach always got worse when she looked at Lena for too long. But then again… It might have been because she thought she remembered Lena being happier when they'd met, but now she just wondered if Lena had always been this serious with a thin veneer of casual humor to cover it up. Watching her best friend transform like that… She wondered if she'd done the same.

But no. She still had a crush on Lena. Simple as that.

"I killed a lot of people in the field, Lena," Hana breathed, feeling a weight roll from her back - an unseemly backpack filled with dead bodies and too many grievances - to her chest.

The confession.

Lena didn't seem fazed. "Doesn't make you a bad person."

Hana blinked, not anticipating that kind of casual frankness from the person who so often ran circles around a subject before tackling the actual problem, but then she remembered that was only a recent development. Lena had always been a straight shooter. Except when it came to girls.

Hana felt her voice crack. "Yeah, we'll talk about it later, okay?"

Lena nodded once and continued down the stairs. "I just realized I have no idea which room Sombra is in."

Hana guffawed, feeling some of her angst begin to melt. "I'll lead the way. Don't worry."

She led the way all the way to Sombra's door, which was already being decorated with paper signs with ":3" faces all over them along with the sketches of her stylized skulls. Something about it was incredibly juvenile, but Hana knew better. This was not a woman to be trifled with. She knocked once, and the shifty eyed woman opened the door a hair, one blue eye showing through the crack before she flung the door open to reveal that the room had, more or less, been completely redecorated.

Lena let out a low whistle from behind her, and Hana just blinked.

The room had at least three new computers with various small blankets that they'd not had in the house before Sombra's arrival. Clothes were strewn everywhere despite the small woman only being there for a few hours. There was even a new desk to support her computer needs.

"Making yourself at home, love?" quipped Lena with a little laugh that Hana knew was nervous.

The woman who had thrown herself back on her bed amidst her nest of blankets laughed a chiming laugh made of silver and glitter. "I can do that anywhere I go. Está necesario, you know?"

Hana rolled her eyes. "Are you just being a showoff with how multilingual you are?"

Sombra smiled her feline grin, but Hana wasn't intimidated as much as she was exasperated. "Come on, Hana, you know that sometimes it's just easier to cut down a big long sentence in English into a few small words in your native language."

Hana huffed, crossed her arms, feeling annoyance creeping back up in her after she'd just calmed down, and threw both arms into the air. "I guess."

Lena's small hand rested on her shoulder, and she took control of the conversation. "We need you upstairs."

The woman batted her big blue eyes at the two of them with that same smile. "Who? Me?"

"Yeah, you boobpunch, I'm sure you have cybernetics in your ears. You heard her."

Both Lena and Sombra giggled a little at that even though it wasn't exactly supposed to be funny, which only steamed Hana's broccoli even more, but instead of saying anything, she clamped her mouth closed while her face burned hot.

She glanced at Lena, whose heart shaped face seemed to glow in the low light despite the black circles that dotted her eyes. "We should go back upstairs and cut the crap. Angela doesn't like to keep waiting."

Sombra rolled her eyes. "You people and your concepts of _time_. It's all an illusion anyway, little cutie. Angela gets mad whenever people don't do what she wants. Is that really such a bad thing though? Maybe we should keep her waiting."

Hana tried to not groan in absolute fucking _anguish_ at the ridiculousness, and she looked more desperately at Lena who just shrugged.

"Okay. I'll leave you out of it," Lena said so nonchalantly that Hana almost believed her. "I don't really care either way. You're just taking up electricity and food, so whatever, I guess. It's not like we need you."

Hana whipped her head back around to Sombra fast enough to give herself whiplash, but she tried to play it cool. In fact, she was doing a lot of "trying" but not a lot of "succeeding."

Most of all, she just wanted to crawl back to her room and go sulk until she felt better. Satya and Lúcio had tried to cheer her up without really listening to what she needed to say, but then again, she hadn't really said what she needed to say. Her stomach rolled at the mere thought of bringing up Brazil. The thought of killing so many with no hesitation. These weren't virus addled robots that could hardly function. They were people. They had families.

There weren't even bodies to bury.

"Oh, _Lena_ , if you didn't need me, would you really keep me?" Sombra purred as if completely oblivious to the fact that she'd just been baited with reverse psychology.

Of course, Lena's voice could incite even the most well-intentioned person if she said something in a way that could be considered condescending, which she didn't do often but was still _very_ good at.

Hana let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, and Sombra and Lena both looked at her - Sombra much more hungrily than Lena, who looked carefully concerned to Hana. Lena knew who Hana _really_ was and didn't seem to mind, but she didn't know _how_ Lena could be so cavalier about ending lives. About _murder_. It was a way of life for Lena before Hana was ever there, and she knew damn well that Lena would throw herself in front of a bullet before she'd ever let it even get near her friends and family. Maybe that's what it was. Maybe Lena's selfishness… No, Hana couldn't even call it that anymore. Lena's _fixation_ on protecting the innocent… Maybe that drove her hard enough to not be afraid to die. Afraid to kill.

Hana wasn't Lena.

Hana barely felt like Hana.

"We should go then, Lena," she unintentionally whispered.

Lena nodded and started to turn, plucking Hana's hand from her side with warm, soft fingers. "Come on. She'll come if she's actually useful."

Hana let herself be led away, a queasy whirlpool sucking down any positive feelings and drowning them in the sticky, inky black of the state of mind that had begun to plague her and consume her in the last few months.

* * *

Lena sat back with Hana right beside her and noticed that Hana seemed slightly detached from the conversation she held with Lúcio and Satya earlier, who were obviously restrained in their concern but still eat slap up with it. Amélie sat on her other side, her fingers interwoven with Lena's, and the soft gauze on her hand tickled Lena's palm to an itch, but she dared not to move lest she scare off both flighty birds at her sides.

Lena's ears felt stuffed with goo and simultaneously like funnels projected every single sound directly to her brain. She felt distant from her body and too aware of every movement at the same time. Her stomach - a lead weight turned into a lead ocean - churned milk into butter by bashing what little she'd eaten against the confines of her organs.

Angela's suggestion caught them all by surprise.

"I don't… know how I feel about this proposition, Angela," said Amélie, squeezing Lena's hand tightly enough to hurt. "I wanted you to fix it, but I…"

"I know you trust me as far as you can throw me," acquiesced Angela with some resentment that Lena knew everyone _other_ than Amélie probably caught. She was incredibly good at hiding it, but after living with her all this time, anyone would know Angela's bitterness. "But we have to do this procedure as quickly as possible. Your… degeneration-" the word seemed to pain Angela like she was chewing on a cactus. "-is rapidly accelerating. Even if your mental degeneration seems to be stable, your body is falling apart."

Zenyatta, who floated nearest to Amélie, nodded. "Amélie, I know you have just come back to us and that it is difficult to trust we who are still strangers in this new life, but we wish you nothing but the best." Zenyatta looked up at Lena with noble eye slits. "I fear that we are reaching the end of our peace time and that war is on the front."

Amélie gave Zenyatta a flat look, and though her voice trembled, her hand clasping Lena's was steady. "We've been at war for a long time."

Genji, for once, butted in. "We have been waging battles without the parameters of war. We've been beating back Talon's grip wherever we can, but now we know that it's destabilized to the point of collapse, especially with…" He trailed off and removed his face plate that covered his eyes. "Especially with Reyes at the head of the organization. He's unstable, and…"

Amélie cut off the conversation with she sharp blade of her unadulterated coldness. "You fear that his instability is only a foreshadowing for what I'll become if you don't cut me open."

Lena gave a sidelong glance from Amélie to Hana, who spoke for the first time since Amélie had entered the room. "We're going to have to fight him," she said.

"No," Anna said, slurping gracefully at her nth cup of tea. How much tea could one person drink? "We're going to have to kill him."

Lena's heart squeezed watching Angela, already tense from the inspection, sag against Fareeha, but she wasn't the only one who reacted to that. Jack reached for Jesse's hand, and Reinhardt wrapped his large arm around Ana's shoulders, careful not to jostle her to the point where her beverage would spill. Even Genji shifted uncomfortably, being a member of Blackwatch and having an association with Reyes.

Angela sighed. "Can we get back to the subject at hand?"

Mei grumbled something and Zarya kissed her forehead.

"Brain surgery isn't my idea of a good time, but fine, whatever." Amélie threw her hands up. "When do we start?"

Angela chewed on her lip. "I'm… gonna need a nap. I don't know how long the surgery will take, but we… we know where your implants are."

Sombra, who made everyone at least a little trigger happy, smiled blithely. "Well, _Angela_ , if you really need extra information on them, I can _absolutely_ help in the surgery. I designed at _least_ two of them. I can explain exactly how they work. They're wonderful pieces of art, honestly. One, even, is wrapped around her brain stem and has a two pass system. If you screw up one, angelita, you kill her instantly." A heaviness settled on them all, and Lena closed her eyes to concentrate on stopping herself from hyperventilating. "Of course… Death would be better than that. Killing Amélie."

Angela's haggard face grew darker than a stormfront. "What do you mean, Sombra?"

"I mean that you will kill Amélie, and the other one will have no inhibitions at _all_. She will come out, and she will kill us all."

Lena's knuckles cracked, and her eyes snapped open as Amélie's fingers turned white in a vicelike grip that felt close to breaking all of Lena's fingers at once. "Ce-ci n'est pas quelle j'etais passe un bon temp," she whispered to herself almost too low for Lena to hear, but Lena wasn't exactly sure what it meant nor did she get a good sentiment from it. At best, she picked out "not" and "fun." But then again, she'd already said it in English, Lena was sure. Amélie sighed and relinquished her tear-inducing grip on Lena's fingers. Her voice was more tired than it had been when Lena had first found her in King's Row. More tired than Florence. More tired than after the attempt on Gérard's life. "I will choose to trust you, Angela Ziegler, but I have one condition."

Everyone's gaze swished back and forth between Angela and Amélie.

The woman beside Lena shifted and stared Angela Ziegler down like a cat before a strike, jabbing a finger at the air in Sombra's direction. "Keep her the _fuck_ away from me while I'm out."

* * *

The gaggle in the kitchen was beginning to dissolve into everyone's own specific activities, and Lena checked the time. It was getting close to the evening rush around Drachten, but she still wondered…

She squeezed Amélie's hand before standing and asked, "Do you want to go grab yourself some clothes from town? We don't have to do a full scale thing, but Angela won't be ready until tomorrow at the earliest, and if you have brain surgery, I doubt that you're going to be in much of a mood to do anything like that for a while."

Amélie's eyes shifted from Lena's to something just off to the side, and Lena glanced over at Hana, who was failing miserably at acting normal and like she wasn't eavesdropping. Amélie nodded to Hana and spoke in the kind of voice that Lena often heard when a child had fallen during practice and got a bit banged up - a kind and gentle voice. A voice of someone who would have been a fiercely loving mother, had her life allowed it. "Would you like to join us? I can assure you that Lena's sense of fashion is terrible, and Talon has kept me in the same suit for years. I'm… quite a bit behind on the trends."

Lena watched Hana's mask of hard neutrality break and flake away as she smiled. It was a genuine thing, and Lena was glad to see it considering that Hana had only given here semi-sincere acknowledgements. Mending the rift between them wouldn't be as easy as she'd hoped, but Amélie already seemed proficient at soothing the beast that was Hana's jealousy and insecurity.

Lena was fairly sure that Hana wanted to like Amélie but was almost positive that her old crush on her was preventing her from being completely like her old self. She didn't seem to be nearly as hostile and aggrivated when they'd talked on the phone, but… Something was off.

Hana normally wouldn't have been so preoccupied with a battle's outcome, but this had… definitely done something to her.

 _Maybe it's because she was fighting flesh people instead of omnics?_

 _No, she's fought flesh people too._

 _Maybe it finally got to her? Child soldier and all. She's still a kid._

 _Now, this… this is true._

Zenyatta began to pass by, accompanied by Genji, and paused. "I do not wish to intrude, my friends, but I think that it would be wonderful if I joined you and offered to procure Genji some pants. Aleksandra still complains, and while I _personally_ do not mind to watch him wander freely, I think his apparent nudity makes at least a few incredibly uncomfortable."

Genji's head swiveled around, his eyes mildly horrified, and Lena thought it was positively _absurd_ and couldn't help but giggle.

Hana smiled in her smug feline way and snorted, crossing her arms. "Yeah, I can come help you both since you're hopeless. Satya might be best for more… elegant fashions, but I can do just fine for casualwear. Lu is super cool with comfy clothes that work with covering parts you don't want others to see and also with going over mobility gear, if you end up with any." She paused, her cheeks going a little pink. "If you didn't mind them coming along."

Lena's heart thudded at Amélie's wide smile and gentle words, "Of course they can come. I'm happy that… you _want_ to be around me."

Hana's beaming was less exuberant than Amélie's, but the thought struck Lena all the same.

 _She's finally_ _ **home**_ …

* * *

Fareeha, surprisingly, offered to come as well and gave Amélie some of her clothes for the interim, which, to Lena, brought up conflicting feelings. Amélie wore one of Fareeha's deeply cut shirts that would have just barely shown any cleavage on her but, for Amélie, cut deep enough to see her battered body and the curve of her breasts. It did, however, cover the hideously spreading tattoo on her forearm and her back. Her pants were baggier than they would have been if Amélie had been in top condition, but with her deteriorating so quickly, it was a miracle she could keep them up without a belt. She bummed some shoes from Fareeha as well and, overall, looked fairly normal for someone with purple-blued skin.

Lena was wearing an oversized, too-thick sweater that couldn't quite cover the fact that she had her accelerator on while Winston worked on new jewelry.

Lena sat back while Satya and Hana sat Amélie up on the bathroom counter and fixed her makeup and talked to Fareeha quietly.

"I'm surprised at how well she's doing, Lena."

Lena wrinkled her nose. "Is it condescending for me to say, 'me too'?"

Zenyatta's voice made her jump. She hadn't heard him float over and briefly remembered the Interrupting Zenyatta in Florence. "I do not think it is condescending, Lena. It's a very uncertain thing in these times, and you simply wish for the best for your domestic partner as I do with my own. Genji took much longer to acclimate to life in Nepal; however, Amélie's previous experience around the Overwatch team seems to be giving her some… advantage."

Lena frowned. "You've seen her interacting a lot more than me, Z-man."

Fareeha nodded, "While she knows few of us now, she accepts us as a family. She keeps her distance from Jesse and…" She grimaced. "Angela, of course, but otherwise, she seems very willing."

Zenyatta tilted his head to the side. "She struggles so much and tries to hide the Widowmaker's hold with overcompensation."

Lena mimicked Zenyatta's head movement. "That… doesn't sound good."

"It is not and will cause a relapse if she is not careful."

Fareeha shook her head and metal heads clicked almost too softly to hear. "No, Zenyatta. We cannot afford to think like that. We have to uplift her and hold her when she feels weak."

Zenyatta remained silent for a time, and Genji approached, wearing Jesse's stolen clothes. Zenyatta's body posture changed to less… heavy. Less concerned. He looked over to Lena with an inclined head. "Again, I fail to completely realize the power of family… I supposed that it's in my circuits." He took Genji's flesh hand. "I learn from you all as much as I may teach."

Genji's eyes were bright and he showed more face than Lena had seen since his arrival. "She's going to struggle for a while, probably, but she won't be… she'll get used to us." He beamed at Lena, and she was taken aback at how conventionally attractive he was. Still not her type, but attractive nevertheless. "She's going to be fine."

Lúcio pulled the door closed behind him as he emerged from Hana's room in his wheelchair, snazzily dressed and smiling as always. "Hey, hey, everybody! Are we rocking this party or what!"

Hana poked her head out of the bathroom's open door. "Just a sec. I'm trying to cover up these bruises, and we don't exactly have purple foundation, but Satya is _amazing_ at makeup."

Lena could almost see the pretty dark blush on Satya's face and hear her mumbled words. She hadn't spent much time around her, but she knew enough from Hana to extrapolate some details.

Lúcio lightly tapped Zenyatta on the upper arm with his fist and the two conversed about something that Lena only half heard. Lena leaned over to Fareeha instead and shot her a furtive glance.

"Is this a bad idea?"

Fareeha tilted her head for a minute before laughing her melodious laugh. "The headstrong one is asking me if something's a bad idea. Someone call the news van."

Genji even snorted, and Lena couldn't help but feel that he had come more out of his shell than ever since going to Brazil. He winked and gave fingerguns while grinning. "If this is a bad idea with all of us here, my brother isn't a complete piece of shit."

Lena was about to make a quip, but Hana burst out of the bathroom absolutely beaming with Amélie in her firm grasp and Satya following, her own face glowing with elegant pride. Amélie's eyes looked brighter - less tired and cagey - and her bruises, which were visible with Fareeha's shirt collar, were covered and blended. Even the nightmarish spiderweb tattoo on her forearm barely peeked from the sleeves.

Her skin still remained its bluish hue, and Lena couldn't ignore that any more than she could ignore how Fareeha's bra didn't quite fit Amélie, but Hana probably wouldn't have divested herself of her underwear - worn or not - without considerable pay, especially since she made a small fortune off that enterprise regularly.

Amélie seemed much more… herself than Lena had seen even on her own. Maybe it was the agency that Satya and Hana had given her - an escape from the battery of Talon and a glimpse at how she once was. What she once was. _Who_ she once was.

She smiled at Lena, and Lena's stomach dropped, the words she was ready to say gone from her mouth and her mind, stolen by the pretty smile and glittering eyes of the woman she so very much loved.

"Are you ready?" She asked, still smiling her angelic smile, and held out her hand to Lena.

Lena took Amélie's cold, trembling hand, and nodded.

* * *

Getting to the mall ended up being a task in which they nearly had to call a limo taxi, but the old clunker van seemed to be in working order. Thankfully for Lena (as she somewhat fondly remembered her time in Australia), the car didn't have wheels or need to be bumping around on the ground, dipping into every single pothole and lurching at every stop. It wasn't often that they used cars at all, using their plane more than either the van or the little SUV in the shed out back, but it was at least convenient and big enough to cram the eight of them in and stow away Lúcio's wheelchair in the back without cramping anyone's legs.

Satya insisted on visiting second-hand stores to find affordable clothing to hem and tailor herself and possibly antique stores. Lúcio wanted to find a place where he could go check out the music but also some not-quite expensive shops for loose fitting clothes. Hana urged that they go find t-shirt stores and a plethora of other tchotchke shops for simple clothes and shorts. Fareeha just sighed a lot as she drove. Zenyatta played twenty questions with Lúcio about all the places that could offer acceptable and well-fitting pants for Genji since he himself preferred handspun and ethically produced clothing, and Genji laughed with Hana about wanting to go to vintage game stores and comic shops more than shop for clothes.

Lena spent her time with Amélie periodically squeezing her hand and looking pensively and wordlessly out the window. Lena watched her carefully to see how her eyes would glaze over, her face turning to a mask of stone - her eyes transforming from honey gold to hard pyrite.

Struggling.

Struggling so desperately that Lena knew if she lost control for a moment, she would do serious damage. She was fighting for her mind - fighting for her life - while everyone laughed and joked and continued on like nothing was even remotely different.

Once they arrived, Amélie was the first out, clambering to free herself from the relatively small compartment. Lena didn't say anything but watched the way she closed her eyes and took deep breaths while her back was turned to the others helping Lúcio out of the van. Instead, she walked up beside the much taller woman and offered her hand, which Amélie took greedily.

"You okay?"

Amélie shook her head once and took another breath. "It's… very hard to be near people after so much isolation."

Lena felt her eyebrows start congregating toward centerline. "Do you want to go home?"

The left corner of Amélie's lipstick darkened lips twitched up in a genuine smile. "No, I think this will be… a good experience overall, even if I'm struggling now."

A shadow descended upon the two of them, and Fareeha's quiet voice rolled over like a peasant breeze. For half a second, she looked like she was about to put a hand on Amélie's shoulder but decided against it in the last millisecond before utter destruction. "If you need any breaks, Amélie, we can find a quiet place. I know a tea shop that sells my favorites. It's usually quiet and dark there."

Amélie blinked, and Lena's head swiveled between the two women. "F-Fareeha, that's… incredibly kind."

Fareeha just smiled, her tattoo creasing under her eye just a tad in the same way Ana's did. "Think nothing of it. I want to go there, anyway."

Satya materialized beside Fareeha, her soft eyes searching. "I believe that I will need time to recuperate after a time. This kind of thing is… not usually factored into my schedule, and I wasn't quite anticipating it."

Fareeha tilted her head, and Lena knew she was taking an extra second to process what she'd heard on her bad side. "We can plan to be here three and a half or four hours, and take a break at the one and a half hour mark, go have tea for a half hour or hour, and then continue our crawl?"

Both Satya and Amélie looked up gratefully at the large Egyptian woman with grateful smiles.

Lena giggled. "Do you think you can enforce that, Fareeha?"

Fareeha crossed her arms and rolled her eyes, flexing a little. "I am the probiotic," she said with a little snort, calling back to an old joke Lena hadn't thought about in a very long time where she'd called Fareeha the "enforcer of all rules" to which Fareeha responded she preferred the term "regulator." Lena had laughed and told her that sounded like a probiotic yogurt commercial tagline. It then turned into Fareeha being "the probiotic."

Lena's giggle turned into a full-on belly laugh as they walked into the mall, her boisterous laughter resounding off of the tile and foyer. Amélie flinched, her fingers tightening around Lena's until Lena's knuckles cracked uncomfortably. _Loud noises. Right._ Lena squeezed back a little more gently than Amélie had, and Amélie returned to herself with a fluttering glance downward to Lena.

"So where do we start?" asked Amélie with a tired smile.

Hana answered, "Well, I guess we should start with second hand stores and work our way up? We'll probably shoot through those."

Satya gave Hana a flat look and looked to Lúcio for help _._ "Hana, have you ever been in a second hand store?"

Hana's face darkened, her yellow face tattoos standing out prominently. "Not really."

Amélie reached out and squeezed Hana's shoulder. "Don't worry. It's… been awhile since I went to any, but… It's worth a look, right?"

Hana's eyes were grateful for the save, as far as Lena could tell.

Thus began their journey.

Satya's eyes went wide in wonder when she threw herself in the nearest storefront lined with rows and rows of secondhand clothes. She took another long look at Amélie, her hand to her chin, her eyes calculating Amélie's exact size, shape, and color palette. And then Satya did something that made Lena, Hana, and Lu swap glances in surprise.

She smiled warmly and offered her hand to Amélie, which Amélie took after half a moment's hesitation.

Lena, Fareeha, Hana, and Lu all kicked back while Satya dragged around Amélie, Genji, and Zenyatta, rattling off information about the styles and fabrics of each article, explaining how she could look at a piece of clothing and know exactly whether or not it would fit. Lena thought she heard the three of them muttering about how even if things were torn or worn or beaten up that they still had integrity and could be rehabilitated into things that were just as good as, if not better, than the original. Personally, Lena thought the moral of the story was a little hamfisted, but she didn't argue that Amélie probably needed to hear it.

Amélie ended up with two full bags of clothes, almost all of which needed to be hemmed and altered by Satya, who seemed to want to _only_ pick out those types of clothes.

Next, Lúcio tried to go into a couple stores and help Amélie find some accessible clothing for post-surgery, but nothing seemed to be friendly to that kind of thing. Genji, on the other hand, found too many shorts and didn't have enough cash to buy them all, so Hana pitched in to the "please clothe the cyborg man" fund.

Hana had more luck than Lúcio finding a few casual shirts, pants, jeans, and comfort items for Amélie, which included some earrings, gloves, hair accessories, bracelets, shoes, and unnecessarily cute and frilly underthings as well as practical underwear. She also convinced Fareeha to pick up a few shirts for herself that were purely indulgent.

By that time, the hour and a half had come, and Fareeha put a stop to any potential continuing by saying that _she_ was tired and needed to sit down a bit.

Amélie and Satya both gave Fareeha thankful glances, but Lena only felt irritated by not finding anything - not being able to try on anything was, indeed, a bitch.

The tea shop was a small place that was just as Fareeha said - dark, quiet, and aromatic. They all managed to sit around a table together, languishing on the floor's pillows with their goodies shoved off to the side. Fareeha ordered Turkish coffee while Amélie and Satya both ordered a tea blend that Lena wasn't quite sure what all was in it called "Winterberry Kingdom." Lena ordered herself a cup of tea called "Elven Mist," which ended up being a blend of jasmine, green tea, and mint. Lúcio kept bragging about how tall he was for once since everyone was sitting and looking up to him in his wheelchair, refusing help to get down and sit with them all on the pillows. He shared Fareeha's Turkish coffee but put infinitely more cream in his. Genji ordered plan matcha and seemed to be fairly enjoying himself, even letting himself hold Zenyatta's hand in the low light.

Lena slurped at her cup and couldn't help her eyes from drifting back to how Amélie smiled - how she relaxed around the others. How little Widowmaker seemed to be trying to encroach. She also couldn't miss the looks that Amélie was throwing her way. The looks that she thought she'd seen long before Talon took her and twisted her. The looks that she'd given Lena before everyone had come home.

They departed the little tea shop after an hour of lounging, Fareeha swapping quiet stories with Amélie about their recent travels, and Lena listened in to try to figure out what was bothering Hana so badly. Her smiles and laughs were genuine now, for sure, but there was a note of hysteria boiling beneath it all, and it reminded Lena of the time Hana had broken down and decided she didn't want to do this anymore - that she didn't want to lead this life anymore. That she just wanted to be _young_ and unencumbered.

Amélie, for one, seemed very ready to go home and stayed back while Genji, Hana, Lu, and Satya scoured little shops for figurines, games, mugs, and the like.

She leaned low to Lena's ear, her lips just barely brushing Lena's skin. "I'm ready to go home."

Lena looked up at those honey golden eyes. "Feeling rough?"

Amélie shook her head slowly, smiling.

Lena swallowed and hoped Fareeha and Zenyatta hadn't noticed their conversation.

Amélie leaned over to kiss Lena full on in public - not quite as chaste a kiss as Lena would have preferred in that company, but she wasn't exactly complaining.

When she pulled back, she whispered in a raspy voice that made the hairs on Lena's arms stand on end, but not unpleasantly. "Je te veux, Lena."

Lena started blushing furiously again.

* * *

This time, neither of them could scream, but Amélie still sank her teeth in just the same.

The two of them barely got the door completely closed and the shopping bags set all the way down before they collided together hotly- hungrily - _passionately_. They crashed together - one a wave, the other the shore, and Amélie pinned Lena onto the bed, leaning over her, moving her body in a way that made Lena's breath catch in her throat. Amélie's cool hand clamped over Lena's mouth, but her eyes were amused. Her tongue rolled over her own bottom lip, and Lena felt her eyes flutter shut while her heart went wild.

Her very skin ached for Amélie to touch her.

Her body called for Amélie in every clumsy move.

And Amélie's called hers back.

Unanticipatedly strong arms pushed Lena all the way back onto the bed instead of half hanging off like they were, and Lena nearly whined aloud, all of her sense fading out to want and desire. Clothes fell away like cares in the breeze. Amélie's gaze held her steady, but Lena grew even more excited as she saw Amélie's breath picking up pace.

"Touch me, Lena…" Amélie breathed in that low purr that made Lena's insides catch on fire.

And Lena did.

But not without reciprocation.

Their mouths were close, touching at times - desperate breaths shuddering between two entities intertwined.

Amélie above her, the sun's dying light touching her face, Lena realized something in the haze of pleasure that dampened the experience.

She, as well as Amélie, knew that the operation might kill her, and if that were the case, this was their last night together.

Lena squeezed her eyes shut, desperately trying to drown out the thought with relishing the way Amélie's fingers moved and trying to match Amélie's increasingly erratic rhythm with her hips and her own fingers.

Amélie teased Lena, having it take a little longer for her to get to the same place at which Lena so quickly arrived, whispering mixes of French and English. Phrases known with words mystifying. The haze took Lena in its arms, covering her body in its mist, until Amélie's breath began to catch, her pupils wide and her eyelids fluttering.

She nodded to Lena, twisted her fingers inside Lena, and Lena had to try very _very_ hard to continue moving with Amélie, drawing it out for Amélie as long as she could, while completely overwhelmed by Amélie's dextrous movements and incredible finesse.

It might have been an hour for them - an eternity - or fifteen seconds suspended in that euphoric space where thrashing and complete motionlessness meet. Their breaths exchanging, shuddering, catching, offering up whispered profanities and declarations.

After, though, Amélie fell beside Lena, her hair undulating on the pillow, drifting over in the air circulation to tickle Lena's bare neck. "Will you hold me, chérie?"

Lena nodded and rolled over a little disconnectedly, careful where she put her hands, still aware of how tender Amélie's skin had to be.

"Lena?" Amélie mumbled, seeming to doze.

"Yeah, love?" Lena heard her own voice as a mumble akin to Amélie's but couldn't be embarrassed about it.

"I love you."

Warmth spread over Lena before the chill of reality set in. "I love you, too."


	55. Things We Lost In The Fire

_A few hours before Lena and Amélie shag…_

Angela rubbed at her eyes until white stars and multicolor fireworks exploded behind her eyelids from the pressure. Part of her wanted to keep rubbing them, but she could feel the headache starting to beat at the base of her skull like a war drum.

"Angela, angela, angela…" cooed the voice of the irritating woman beside her. "You've got your hands full, and there's a way to get rid of it all, you know. You just have to get rid of a few players, and the world is all yours!"

"Sombra, please," Angela commanded.

Sombra had been heckling her about offing or at least abandoning part of the team for hours now. Angela was incredibly glad that the brunt of the team was gone having fun, but another part of her was incredibly bitter that she had to sit around and inspect blueprints and information to try to plan to extract the gem nestled in Amélie's brain.

Gem was a pretty word for what it was. It was a device wrapped around Amélie's brainstem and cerebellum that looked eerily like… you guessed it… a spider. Two of its legs were jammed into Amélie's medulla oblongata, two perforated her cerebellum, and two held itself in place by puncturing her brainstem. It was a wonder that Amélie could move, could function, could _still be Amélie_. The device was wrapped in a fine lace mimicking a spiderweb's fineness and intricacy.

"Sombra, can you tell me the truth?" Angela's throat was too tight to say much more. She didn't want to think about the possibility - the potential - for what she was now seeing.

Sombra blinked, pushing herself back from the dining table where Angela was scouring every scan she could. _I really need a backlight one of these days. Why don't I already have one? They're relatively cheap…_

"Will you trust that I'm telling you the truth?" Sombra's words were measured, and her eyes were narrowed as if squinting would enhance her ability to see through Angela's words and into her motives.

Angela put up a hand in a shrug. "I'll consider it."

Sombra folded her arms and resumed her shit eating grin. "Your funeral, then. Go for it."

Eyerolling wasn't necessarily a willed gesture from Angela, but it happened anyway. Sombra's goading statements reminded Angela of Hana, in a way, but Hana would never be so downright malicious and misleading.

Angela pulled out a scan image and threw it in front of Sombra. "Is Amélie still there at all? I don't know how she's upright, much less _herself_. She should be a vegetable at best, if not dead."

Sombra shrugged, but her eyes gave something away that Angela almost didn't catch. Her stomach squeezed and rolled in a way that made her think for a hot second that she'd be sick. Before the other woman even spoke, Angela knew from the look in her eyes what the answer was.

"She's still there, Doctor. She shouldn't be, but she is." Sombra sighed and the gravity in her voice dissipated like morning dew in the sun. "She's always been stubborn, hasn't she?"

Angela could only give a quick nod.

She could feel Sombra's cybernetically enhanced eyes tracking her face, her posture, her breathing.

"You're scared of operating on her now, aren't you?"

Angela didn't respond.

The smug joy in her voice rolled along the hills of her lilting words. "It was easier when you thought she was just pretending. It was easier when you could _accidentally_ kill her with a clean conscience, wasn't it?"

Angela's tumultuous stomach transformed from rough waves into surging lava, but her words were arctic. "I will never again make that mistake."

Sombra put her hands up. "I'm just saying what we were all thinking." She tilted her head. "Yeahhhh… Four's a crowd, so I'm gonna go, but if you need anything else, the best I can do is explain what it is and how it works. I know fuck all about squishy things."

"Biology and anatomy and physiology aren't squishy," Angela felt herself chiding.

As Sombra walked toward the door, she laughed. "Yeah, but I'm more machine than person now. People are squishy. A machine you can fix. A person… No… Not the same." And repeated, "People are squishy," before leaving.

Jack walked in in Sombra's wake with a confused expression, followed by Jesse who swaggered casually.

"What the fuck was she going on about?" grumbled the older man.

"Absolutely nothing," Angela said dryly, wondering how she was ever going to get anything done with people continuing to interrupt her. She really needed an office, but she wasn't about to go to Winston's lair without reason. She had to convert half of his room into an operating room already. Going in there for casual study wasn't exactly polite after that kind of thing, even though she was sure that he wouldn't mind.

"That's the thing with all you womenfolk. Chatterin' about nothin'," laughed Jesse with a shake of his head.

"Keep talking like that and I'll break your fucking teeth," Jack replied with a salty glare.

"You know I'm kiddin'. Come on, babe."

Jack continued his glare.

" _Babe…_ "

Angela snorted. Their shenanigans always managed to perk her up a little, and for a second, she couldn't exactly remember why she'd been mad at Jesse when he first reappeared in Florence. Then it hit her. He'd practically taken Gabriel's side in a situation before understanding the whole of the thing; then, he ran off and disappeared, making his own vigilante justice in atonement for everything he'd done with Blackwatch. _Then_ , without a word to her when they'd been so close for so many years, disappeared even more by running off to Nepal with no warning. Angela thought him dead for so long until a letter came for her one day while she was working before the recall. She'd been so angry at him for leaving her alone that she tore up the letter and slam dunked it in the garbage before even considering reading it.

She'd quickly gotten over herself, though. Overall, she missed Jesse and his shenanigans. She missed the way they interacted. She missed the way he was her best friend while rising up through the ranks of recognition in Overwatch and the world. She missed the way she and him and Fareeha all would sit around laughing at Fareeha's dumb jokes when she was much younger. When they were all much younger.

When Jesse McCree, friend and ally and rascal, was around, Angela felt younger in a way that was entirely different than the way she felt around Fareeha. Fareeha was her love. Fareeha was her _life_. Fareeha was her best friend and confidant. But Fareeha was around for the waves of hurt and pain and the aftermath of war and trauma that still afflicted Angela and probably always would. Fareeha knew Angela's heart in a way that no one else ever _could_.

Jesse was a good-time kind of friend - the one to count on when things got dark, but Angela would probably never call Jesse in the middle of the night when nightmares woke her. Angela probably would never again lean on Jesse the same way she had when they were much younger - still in their teens and just outside of it. After she felt like Jesse had abandoned her when she needed help the most, she doubted they could ever go back to that kind of relationship. That level of friendship.

But…

It was still _incredibly_ pleasant to have him around, to say in the least.

"Yeah, yeah, keep at it," Jack said, wrenching Angela from her not-unpleasant musing.

Jesse ignored him and turned his big brown eyes toward Angela who narrowed her own. "What do you want?" she asked with a smile growing naturally from the fertile soil of rekindled friendship.

"What's up, doc? What's the news?" He grinned at her and ran a hand through his hair as he plopped down on the nearest chair.

Angela sighed and gestured to the table in front of her. "Well, it's Amélie, for sure."

Jack frowned, scratching at his two-day-old stubble. "Were we still wondering that?"

Jesse shook his head. "She's still a scientist, Jack."

Jack rolled a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug.

A comfortable pause naturally rested among them before Jack shattered it with a question that Angela had been trying to put out of her mind.

"What do you plan on doing now that you know that, Ang?"

Angela wouldn't look up, her eyes feeling too heavy to lift to meet his penetrative gaze. Instead, she was focused on the scan of Amélie's brain with the bright white of the gem sitting like a cancerous tumor in her greyed out soft tissues.

"I have to help her, Jack," she said, but it came out in a whisper.

He nodded. "Well, I'm fucking relieved. Imagine what we'd have to do if you had a little 'mishap' and killed her. Lena would never fucking come back."

She managed to glance up. "Lena's her own person."

Jesse stopped Jack from going on a rant with a gentle hand to his knee. "She's a valuable person on the team, and she means a lot to all of us." He shrugged a little, looking earnestly up at Angela. "I done fucked up with her once, and you did too. Took her forever to trust either of us again." He shook his head. "I don't want to hurt the kid ever again, and if we have to keep Amélie around to do that, then so be it."

"It's really her, Jess," Angela said, looking back down at the jeweled arachnid tormenting her former friend.

He sighed. "I don't know, Angie."

Angela's blood ran cold for half a second before she snapped, "Don't call me that."

His already dark face turned darker in an embarrassed blush. "Shit. Sorry. I forgot."

"It's fine," she lied through clenched teeth.

Gabriel had called her that, among other things, frequently, even to the very end.

"I've got another sensitive question," Jack stated with his perfunctory candidness.

Angela rolled her head toward him with a sigh that wasn't as irritated as she wanted it to seem. "What is it, Jack?"

"When are you distilling the genetic code and shoving it into all of us?"

Angela blinked. "Excuse me?"

Jesse was the one that snorted at that. "Do you think that we're all dumb, sweetheart? It's pretty damn obvious that you and Ms. Terrifying are going to distill out the regenerative structure, jam it in a pill, and then shove that pill under our skin or some shit."

Jack nodded with a hand out as if to say, 'Couldn't have said it better myself.'

The fatigue was beginning to creep back up on her again, and she didn't rightly know how she was going to be able to perform such an intricate operation without the machinery from the Swiss Headquarters. She guessed that she would have to rely on what she always had until the last ten years. Her hands. Her brain. Sobriety.

"You look tired, Ang. What's the deal?"

"Well, I'm trying very hard to stay sober so I can keep her alive, but I'm very tired and this looks… trickier than even I thought. Talon wanted to either keep her or destroy her if she escaped." She pointed over to an image a little further down the table to a full color scan that was too painful to look at. It almost looked… necrotic… "Pick that up and be careful, would you?"

Jack did as he was told. "If this isn't _supposed_ to be black and white, Angela, I can see fuck all."

She smiled. "Okay, well… Jesse… You see the implant?"

Jesse shuddered and made a revolted noise. "Why's it all purple like that on the inside of her?"

Angela shrugged. "First instinct says necrosis, but she would be… very, very dead, were that the case.." She plucked the image from Jesse's hands and pointed to the jeweled spider. "The best I can guess is that this -" the purple green jewel, glittering and shimmering like a cicada's wings "- is leaking fluid directly into Amélie's brain and nervous system, slowing her body's heart rate, lowering her blood pressure, decreasing her need to breathe…"

Jack swore. "How is she upright?" He pointed to a speck in the middle of another scan on her brain. "And what's that?"

Angela shrugged. "That's… probably just a speck on the film. I'm not really sure. It isn't big enough to be an issue. Talon must have perfected Overwatch's program for this kind of thing," and then she paused, hoping they hadn't heard.

But they had.

Jack's tone was harsh, his words a hiss. " _Excuse me?_ "

Angela clenched her fists to keep from visibly shaking. She'd been privy to too much. She'd had her fingers in too many pies. Too many irons in the fire. And she'd been the one to catch the house on fire.

She lowered her voice to keep it from shaking like her hands were, even though she was now gripping the table with all her might. "I was… involved in a lot of things, Jack… You know that…"

"You were part of every Frankenstein project they had, Angela!" he exclaimed, rubbing at his eyes. "Jesus fucking hell Christ! No wonder you didn't want to join back up with us!" He slammed his fist down, and Angela pulled back in a flinch. "Did they _make_ you do this shit?"

Angela looked away. "In part… Most of it came from… theories of mine… It was never supposed to go so far."

"Maybe we should fucking send Gabriel a thank you note," Jack growled, and Jesse reached a hand out to Jack and Angela alike. Both took his rough-worn hands, and he squeezed gently.

"It's over now," he said flatly with the chilly practicality that he had always been capable of. "We have to get through what's next, now."

Angela nodded and squeezed his hand again before letting go, looking down at the silver wire filaments that surrounded the jewel protectively - a web. A cocoon.

That's where Widowmaker was.

And she could be removed.

"Listen, guys, I… I think I'm going to go sleep a while before getting everything else I need set up."

Jack stared at her, and she turned her eyes away from the half-seeing eyes that now bore into her cheek. "Do you need us to… make a 'supply run'?"

She glanced up, sighing, knowing that the two of them were about to take the plane to the Swiss HQ and ransack any medbay that they still could even with the governmental surveillance threat. "I need extra laparoscopic camera tubes, extra fentanyl citrate and morphine."

"Cameras?" asked Jesse.

She paused again, feeling her stomach sink. "No… scratch the cameras… Just the drugs…"

This was going to have to be a manual operation.


	56. Demons

Angela Ziegler washed her face for the billionth time since she got home. She'd gotten up way before anyone else to simply enjoy the quiet before her day got… messy. She'd barely been able to sleep, and Fareeha had almost insisted that she put the surgery off for another day to get some rest, but Angela declined. It was going to have to happen soon or else she might change her mind about what to do with Amélie.

She'd also declined Fareeha's company in the early morning, but that didn't let her be completely alone. For some reason, Satya was awake and milling around in the barely-lit kitchen, perusing the tea selection, which was only growing more and more every day with so many tea-drinkers in the house with all different tastes and preferences. In fact, Angela had nearly memorized everyone's tea preferences.

Fareeha and Ana both liked spiced and black teas - warm things that smelled and tasted like Christmas, but Ana's preference leaned more toward cinnamon based tea..

Satya preferred black tea and floral teas, which made perfect sense.

Surprisingly, Lucio liked black teas and fruit based teas.

Amélie liked what she always had. Simple things. Herbal teas.

Lena just drank whatever, and Angela was a little convinced that she would drink gutter water if you put "tea" at the end of it.

Hana, apparently taking after her partners, started drinking some but not much.

Genji, surprise surprise, was a matcha and oolong fan.

Zenyatta just liked to hold a glass of whatever everyone else was having.

Mei didn't drink tea often, but when she did, she preferred oolong.

Zarya, Jack, Jesse, and Angela, herself, drank more coffee per person than entire countries.

Sombra didn't appear to eat or drink, which was a little unnerving.

"Oh, Angela…" Satya said, dropping her tea ball onto the counter as she turned. "I-" She swallowed visibly and blushed. "I hope I didn't… wake you?"

Angela shook her head. "No, I couldn't sleep very well, so I thought I could go ahead and get a jumpstart on some things before the surgery." She paused, taking in Satya's general dishevelment. "Can you not sleep?"

Satya looked down at her cup and plopped her tea ball in the water. "I do not handle change especially well."

Angela frowned, feeling a little sorry for the woman. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Satya shook her head. "I have warm water left over. Would you like a cup?"

Angela shook her head in return. "Coffee, for me."

Satya smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Of course, doctor."

Angela went and set the pot to run, but she watched Satya carefully as her eye-contact constantly slid away - not in her usual way of flickering to something else, but something very familiar despite Satya's newness to the crew. Her hair… that wasn't "I can't sleep" hair.

"Getting along well with Hana and Lucio, I take it," Angela said, feeling entirely too smug about what she'd just done.

Satya made a strangled sound before managing something that wasn't anything in any real language.

Angela crossed her arms, smiling. "It's okay, Satya. We're open about these things here. If we weren't, well, that would be a bit uncomfortable to pretend like we aren't all preoccupied. It also tends to cut down on rude entrances or awakenings."

Satya cleared her throat and took a gulp of tea, but her wide eyes told Angela that the tea was too hot, and Angela, for a second, could remember being embarrassed about having 'relations' with her other partners when she was much younger. The only person who embarrassed her now when she was _acutely_ aware was Ana.

"I'm… uh… not used to this kind of attention, Anglea. You'll have to… forgive me…"

Angela shrugged. "It's okay." She gestured to Satya's drink. "Drink up and go get some sleep. I'm going to need your help in the morning. Probably all day tomorrow, actually. Brain surgery is tricky."

Satya nodded and started to go, but Angela stopped her with an outstretched hand. "Uh, before you go… I have a question."

Satya blinked, her cheeks still dark with her pretty blush. "Yes?"

"I usually…" Hot embarrassment began bubbling up in Angela's cheeks. "I, uh, well, it sounds dumb when I say it out loud."

Satya continued to stand there quizzically.

"I usually… listen to very loud music when I operate. It helps me focus. Is that going to bother you?"

A wide grin broke out on Satya's angular face, softening her to much younger than her age. "Music… all music has patterns. Even the most chaotic music has patterns. It has an order and a purpose. Music calms me, Ms. Ziegler."

Angela's blushed deepened. "It's… rather unorthodox music…"

Satya smiled wider. "I cannot wait to discover your true music tastes. I feel that it says much about a person." She paused. "Good night, doctor."

"Good night, Satya," Angela mumbled, feeling a little too old.

The pot stopped brewing only a minute or so after Satya departed her company, and Angela considered how pleasant she was to be around, which almost surprised her for some reason. With Satya working for Vishkar up until recently, it had been very difficult to believe that she could be… well… not one of them. In fact, it was beginning to look like suspicion was one of Angela's most fatal flaws.

She sighed and poured from the electric carafe into her own cup and thought for a time about how best to set up a surgical room for Amélie. She'd already gotten Jesse and Jack and Winston to help her construct a small offset in Winston's room, but she'd warned Winston that there might be a blood smell lingering if the plastic floor bottom somehow ripped, which he _said_ was fine, but Angela could tell that he was only tolerant.

She'd moved her equipment to the makeshift operating room so that she could keep an eye on Amélie's vitals, but she was still concerned that it wasn't going to be enough. That her operation wasn't going to be enough by the nature that _she_ was the one conducting it. That it wasn't going to be enough because of a lack of resources that she had no control over. If it were up to her at the old headquarters, she would have a team of surgical professionals and every bit of the best equipment that Overwatch money could buy. Instead, she managed to pilfer a few things here and there and buy some stuff off of a less than reputable Danish market.

Instead, she was managing to barely get by with someone who was excellent at hard light manipulation in case things got hairy and someone who had no qualms with cutting open Amélie for her own satisfaction. Satya could take commands quickly and was incredibly intuitive, and Hana… Hana was the only other person in the facility who had any medical knowledge whatsoever that wasn't sheerly homeopathic. Not to say anything bad about Ana, of course, but Ana wasn't the person that Angela needed in this kind of time. Ana had personal investment in Amélie that wasn't conducive to letting her live.

Angela sat at the counter alone for a while before getting a fancy. "Hey, Athena?"

Athen blinked on immediately, showing off her flashy omnic body. "Yes, Angela?"

"Would you mind keeping me company…? At least until I have to start prepping."

Athena inclined her head graciously and gracefully. "Of course. Is something troubling you? I am sure that Zenyatta-"

Angela looked up from her mug. "Yes. Yes, indeed. Can you wake him? We can all chat.

Athena nodded again and blinked away. Only a minute or two later, Zenyatta emerged into the dimly lit kitchen, and Athena blinked back on.

"Angela, I was beginning to think you were avoiding me," said Zenyatta with tranquil amusement in his voice.

Angela smiled. "I'd offer you a cup, but…"

Zenyatta put up a hand and chuckled. "I understand. Now… What's troubling you, child?"

Angela looked back down into her coffee cup to avoid looking at disappointment, but she saw herself, so there went that whole idea.

"It's this surgery, Zen," Angela sighed with more fatigue in her voice than she thought she was capable of.

"What about it troubles you?" He took an unusual turn and planted his feet on the ground a moment before climbing onto the chair beside her and rested his chin on his hand. So human an expression from… a transcended monk.

Angela sighed again but for a different reason. "We're getting down to brass tacks with no run around, are we?"

Zenyatta laughed his silly little laugh again and offered his hand, which Angela took a little uncertainly.

"Am I supposed to shake this or…"

"I have discovered that people often like it when I offer them physical consolation as well as verbal. You may do what you please."

So Angela took it more firmly, the way she might if Jack or Ana or Reinhardt would offer their hands in trying times. They were a very touchy family, all things considered.

"How have you been adjusting with Amélie in the house? I know that it has been a short time, but…" He trailed off.

Angela gave a so-so motion with her free hand and picked up her much from which she slurped. "It's very odd seeing her again. Seeing _Amélie_ and not that _thing_."

Zenyatta cocked his head, still propped on his hand. "Why do you not call her by her name?"

"That's not a person, Zenyatta," Angela felt her face getting hot and her fingers squeezing his palm a little tighter.

"Angela…" He stopped for a long moment, but Angela was fuming too much to say anything else that wasn't just outright mean. "Widowmaker… The 'thing' that you refer to… She is still a person. She walks and she talks and she breathes. She interacts with us. She… has a soul."

The rage - the old, familiar thing that crept up on Angela and enticed her so, so dearly - started to burn Angela's throat in treacherous acid reflux. She swallowed and cleared her throat, sipping hot coffee that burned away the acidic waves left in the wake of her near-explosion. Her words felt like knives nails clawing free from the deepest parts of her hatred and through her throat. "Anything that can do what she's done has no soul, Zenyatta."

Zenyatta paused, considering, and he turned his head to the side to face Athena, who'd been silent. "What do you think, dear Athena?"

"I think that Amélie is very much alive," she said distractedly.

Zenyatta's posture suggested a frown. "Friend, this is not the question I have asked."

Athena looked up from her looking at seemingly nothing and nodded. "Oh. My apologies."

Zenyatta waved her away, and Angela was slightly taken aback by how naturally Zenyatta worked with regular conversation as well as sage advice. Sure, he'd interacted well with the other members and frequently pestered them into having conversations, but in this moment, at three in the morning when all was supposed to be quiet, Zenyatta seemed more human to Angela than ever. So did Athena.

"I was peeking in when I _clearly_ should not have been," said Athena completely unabashedly.

"Spying on the young lovers again?" Zenyatta almost sounded amused.

"And lovers they are," Athena agreed. "It's like a train crash. It's hard to look away."

Angela felt her blood run cold every time she thought about Lena and Amélie tangled up together. She hated the thought as long as that creature was still in Amélie's brain.

"What was the question?"

"Do you think that Widowmaker has a soul?"

Athena paused for a long moment, her glowing aura dimming considerably. "I think…" She began carefully. "Hmm… I must go, my planet needs me." And she clicked off the screen and television alike.

Both Zenyatta and Angela looked at one another and said nearly simultaneously, "Is that a reference to something?"

That, in and of itself, made Angela's anger flame out into a bout of giggles. "I suppose it doesn't really matter, all things considered. I'm a doctor."

Zenyatta's shoulders slumped as if he were sighing. "Sometimes it is not about duty, Angela. Sometimes it is about… the human experience, I think." He tapped on his own cheek and released Angela's hand, patting it lightly. "I may not have your flesh, Angela, but I have a soul, and I know the hardships of that."

Angela blinked.

"To err makes us human, does it not? But that does not mean that we much live in our wrong." He pushed himself away from the counter. "I do believe that I need to get back to Genji… He and I were… In the middle of some things."

Angela choked on her coffee sip and blew coffee back into her face. " _Excuse me?_ "

Zenyatta tilted his head back to Angela as he started walking away. "Just because I am enlightened, Angela, does not mean that I dislike intercourse."

He left her sputtering in her own confusion.

 _Doesn't enlightenment require celibacy…?_

She decided to put it out of her mind for a while because she didn't want to think too much about Zenyatta's robo-dong. Genji's, she'd designed and had to think about it because he was her patient. That didn't mean… No, she _did_ like thinking about that one.

She mused about her own achievements for a time before her thoughts drifted back to Amélie and their first meeting - how Gérard had procured tickets to go watch his girlfriend dance at the most prestigious halls with the most prestigious troupe of French dancers.

She remembered how he'd talked about how her parents had met a similar way, Amélie's mother had been an incredibly and internationally recognized dancer from Pakistan who moved to France to further pursue her career, where she'd met Amélie's father - an art curator for a newly opened museum in Paris that boasted photography and contemporary art.

He, being a friend of the venue owner, managed to go backstage and talk to the dancers and choreographer, taking his own pictures to hang in his gallery as a special display, and he approached Amélie's mother, speaking poorly in Punjabi, inviting her to eat on him rather than go out to eat _with_ him. Amélie's mother, much like Amélie would have had Gérard done the same, found it amusing and agreed. Not long after, they were married with Amélie on the way.

Amélie and Gérard had laughed about their own meeting later on in their relationship - a starstruck, awestruck Gérard pining over the famous Amélie. She said she always found him charming because he never intruded - never pushed his way into the crowd. She was always fond of the way he commanded attention without ever once asking. That that was what pulled her toward him.

Angela took another long sip of her coffee before trying to think about something else, but all she kept coming up with was the need and desire to drive out Widowmaker so maybe… just maybe… _That_ Amélie would come back to them.

And for the first time in a while, Angela Ziegler wished she had a drink and did not pour herself one.

* * *

Hours - eternities and seconds - later, Amélie and Lena came alone to the impromptu operating room in the uncluttered corner of Winston's room. Hana and Satya were making last minute checks of things - Satya doing more of the checking than Hana, who really just seemed to be sulking a lot.

Everything seemed to be in working order.

Everything seemed to be in its proper place.

Everything except that hellish device in Amélie's body.

Everything except Widowmaker, who still lurked.

The way Amélie looked at Angela made Angela's skin crawl - suspicious. Angry, almost.

"Are you ready?" Angela asked, partly asking herself.

Amélie didn't respond. She only leaned over to kiss Lena so sweetly that Angela looked away in shame of the mere consideration that she could ever do anything to hurt Lena the way she'd thought about doing.

Amélie was gracious, though, and sent Lena away before Angela had to ask.

Amélie, without warning or prompting, disrobed to reveal her body as battered and bruised as Angela's worst nightmares could ever hope to portray. The gauntness of her face was merely symptomatic of the true problem.

Her body was dying.

Hana gasped, and Satya blew out a hard breath from between clenched teeth, and Amélie - no, not quite Amélie - looked at them both - examined them carefully before she looked back to Angela with conflict painted so clearly on her thin, bony face.

Angela held her gaze for a time before asking, "Are you truly ready for this? It will be a long, dangerous procedure."

Amélie inclined her head, completely unabashed that she stood there so vulnerable before people that could end her life, and she said quietly, "Either I die by Talon, I die by old age or stupidity, or I die by your hand. Let it come how it may."

Angela could respect that much, at least. "Did you take the pills like I suggested?"

Amélie nodded.

"Please lie down, then. Face up would be easiest for now."

Amélie did as she was told, and Angela wondered if it was too cold for her to be comfortable, but she figured it didn't matter since she'd be asleep within the next twenty seconds.

"Administer the anaesthesia, please."

Satya did as she was commanded, and everything started clicking back into place for Angela. Nothing could have truly prepared her for operations again other than having done thousands. She might have lost her edge, but she could do exactly what she needed to without fancy technology. She was Angela fucking Ziegler, and she was the world's best doctor.

Without thinking, though, she took Amélie's hand as Satya lowered the face mask onto Amélie's chapped lips, and Amélie didn't flinch away. _Sometimes, people needed that physical reassurance._ Angela smiled to herself.

"I'm going to need you to breathe deeply, okay? Ten big breaths. Can you do that?"

Amélie shot her a look that seemed a little irritated, but fear was more than clear in her eyes. She nodded and squeezed Angela's hand tightly until the anaesthetic took her into numb sleep.

Angela was nearly loathe to let go of Amélie's hand, but the sooner they started on the operation, the sooner it would be over with.

She couldn't let herself trust Satya or Hana take the first incision, so she slapped some gloves on and grabbed a marker while Satya and Hana rolled Amélie over onto her stomach.

"Do you have the shears and the razor?"

Satya nodded. "Should I go ahead and start that now?"

Angela sighed. "I wish I'd thought to do it while she was still awake, but yes, please."

Satya nodded, and Angela secretly wondered if Amélie or Widowmaker was going to come out of a sound sleep to cut Satya's hands clean off for cutting her hair, but nothing like that happened. Angela was slightly surprised that Amélie had agreed to cutting her hair for the procedure - a pixie cut shorter than Lena's and looking more like Zarya's than anything. She wondered if Amélie had told Lena about the decision she'd made.

Probably.

Locks of hair fell onto the floor like something being shed away - the excess falling away from something new.

Angela hoped that this wouldn't be the look Amélie would have in her last moments - undignified in her nudity and shaved like a cat before spaying.

Satya mostly just cut away the parts that were necessary and shaved the hairs away from where Angela needed to make an incision, but she promised that she'd fix Amélie to fully presentable and fashionable later. Now was the time for necessity only.

Necessity…

Angela tried her best to visualize exactly where everything was on Amélie's body, but still glanced back at the scans hanging on the wall before making a mark from the base of Amélie's skull to two inches down her neck. She hated to do it this way, and if she could avoid doing this manually, she would have. She made dotted lines to make the capital i on Amélie's neck and breathed out slowly.

Hana was already there with an iodine solution, swabbing down the area, getting more than the fair share sloppily dripping all over Amélie, which would have to be removed for the tattoo removal. Their pre-surgery talk had been a strenuous one with much of Amélie and Angela throwing ideas around, going back and forth, and coming to a compromise. Angela had so much to do, and she had to get moving faster.

She swapped her marker for a scalpel, took a breath, and made the first incision into Amélie's body.

The surgery itself was a slow process - a process that made Angela's nerves and internal monologue become numb and still. She rendered herself to knowledge - hard, fast knowledge that couldn't be disputed. She barked orders at Satya and Hana like they were just two nurses that she might have had in a real hospital and ran them into the ground with bits of work to do here and there. Angela probably should have put paper gowns over Amélie, but she had none and had no desire to get in her own way any more than she had to.

She found herself completely detached from the process of it all - sever this ligament here for reattachment later, move this muscle here to replace when things were calm. The tattoo on Amélie's back seemed to unnerve her more than the operation itself. It sat there… watching Angela scrape muscles away from Amélie's spine - from its _host's_ spine. There in the middle of it all - after so long of pounding methodic music ringing in her head - Angela parted those delicate muscles like fucking _Moses_ and the Red goddamn Sea. She practically had to cut off Amélie's - the patient's - muscles at their insertion points so that she could adequately look in and peek around. Reattaching the muscles was nothing in comparison to snipping them free. Snipping was too nice of a verb.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, ignoring the warm blood on her gloved hands. She held her scalpel up, poised like a heron ready to strike at the unwitting prey just underneath the surface of the waters.

"Angela, are you quite alright?" Satya's quiet voice cut through the noisy music like Angela had cut through Amélie's flesh.

No.

The _patient's_ flesh.

She couldn't afford to think of Amélie as Amélie.

Not now.

Clinical. Regimented. Emotionless.

If she thought about _Amélie_ laying under her knife, things instantly got a thousand times harder. If she thought about Amélie as Amélie, memories of sharing wine and laughing at Overwatch shenanigans hit her like a stack of bricks. If she thought about Amélie as Amélie, the pain of losing her would roll in again.

Though Amélie was slightly younger, she _always_ watched out for Angela who was too naive to function for too long.

"I'm fine, Satya." Angela said a little more forcefully than she intended. She knew she'd waited too long to be convincing in any response other than acquiescence.

"If you need a break…" Satya urged.

"No. We can't afford to let the patient sit here while exposed to the world. We're practically looking at the patient's brain. It's too big of a risk."

In the middle of surgery, Angela, again, wished she had a drink but did not go for one. The antiseptic burned her nose the same way that alcohol burned her throat, though - familiar and comforting. Predictable.

She pushed the thoughts away in her mind as if moving a physical wall. They were not easily moved, but she eventually managed to fully push it aside. She stood, stretching her tense back, and plopped the scalpel down in a bowl of alcohol, which Satya immediately took away. Still trying to keep that calm detachment about her, she peeled off her bloody gloves and threw them in the trash alongside so many other pairs. Turning back to Amélie, Angela picked the circular bone saw from the table. For that second, Angela couldn't figure out what was more poetically ironic about the situation - that she purchased the bonesaw from a butcher and that she was currently butchering Amélie or that she was butchering a butcher.

She swallowed her emotions once more as she clicked the switch and the high-pitched squealing of roughly 5,000 revolutions per minute clawed at her ears. Something inside her, though, quivered in anticipation - excitement. She had the power of Amélie's life in her hands, and something about that _excited_ Angela. _Thrilled_ Angela.

Peeling away the muscle was the easy part, Angela thought. Muscles could be reattached, but bone was infinitely more finicky. But… When she got to where she needed to start making executive decisions on where to hack apart Amélie's skull, Talon had done Angela's job for her by removing the perfectly sized piece and fusing it back together. What hadn't shown up on the scan other than a few over-calcified spots turned out to be the poorly healed door to Widowmaker's essence.

Angela took it upon herself to reopen that door with her bone saw, and what lay beyond made her breath catch.

Seeing the gem - the jewel - the _device_ \- latched onto Amélie's soft tissues while only on a few scans was one thing. Seeing it in person was another.

The biomechanic webbing lay intricately over every part of her brain stem, as if it were growing and creeping along at a painfully slow but equally detrimental rate. The gem sat with its legs penetrating those delicate tissues, leaking its purple fluid into Amélie's nervous system, invariably something _else_ that Talon stole from Overwatch's files. The fluid was, inevitably, a degeneration-inducing neuroblocker that would leak out into Amélie's body over time, rendering her body incapable of absorbing nutrients from food, making her body unable to heal itself, and eventually rendering her completely catatonic until she died from full body paralysis and degeneration. Angela… had also been an accessory to this. In fact, she'd been an accessory to as much biological warfare and living hell as she had been peace and reconstruction.

It seemed, though, that only now did she realize the extent of the damage she'd done.

 _No more_ , she thought to herself. No, it wasn't a thought. It was a command.

She put aside her bone saw and stripped her gloves off again before donning a new pair.

"Tweezers."

And Angela Ziegler got to work, becoming once more the doctor she'd neglected being for too long.

* * *

Angela blinked as bloody water splashed up on her uncovered forearm, and she tilted her head at the diluted pink beads, watching them run down her forearm and drip into the mop sink temporarily installed in Winston's lair. Her eyes felt gritty and her back ached despite her spinal implant, which was there for many reasons, one of which was to keep her able to stand on her feet for up to eighteen hours at a time - prevention to spinal compression. This was one of those times that it didn't help.

She'd been so rigidly stiff while operating, and now, she wasn't sure how her rigidity hadn't ended Amélie's life. One jerky move would have rendered her a vegetable if not a total corpse. Satya and Hana were finishing collapsing down the materials that were unused, unsoiled, or just generally not needed anymore. Amélie still lay face down on the table. They were going to have to flip her onto her back somehow without royally fucking up everything else they'd done, and Angela figured out she'd bite that bit off when she got to it.

Her eyes, though, fell away from the splashes on her arms and to the petri-dish beside the sink. The petri-dish that held the cursed spider and its web. It looked less malicious in this light, now that it wasn't leeching away Amélie's life and volition. It looked like a pretty piece of costume jewelry more than anything. A piece of glittering superficiality leaking dark fluid out into the bottom of the bowl but… still. If you took that away, it looked an awful lot like something you might see in an antique shop as an overpriced piece of inherited jewelry.

With it sitting on the counter, it's legs folded up on itself like a regular spider, the danger was gone. The danger was gone, and there was a vacuum in its wake.

Angela felt herself go to the comforting space of familiar dissociation in that instant - in the calm and quiet and the after of the risky operation where her patient was finally safe and stable. The next half hour was fuzzy at best, but more realistically, it was just gone and before she could stop herself, she curled into a ball on the floor near Winston's hammock and found herself in a deep, deep sleep that only eighteen hours of continuous operation could do to her.

That was the first time in months she had no dreams. No nightmares. Only the pitch black arms of sleep embracing her like an old lover.

Angela felt herself stirring from consciousness before she could really comprehend what she was doing. Heat rained down on her in a loving gale, and rain slapping against the windowpane met her ears, underscoring and harmonizing the heater. Familiar perfume. Soft sheets. Her naked body sprawled out in bed.

She knew, logically, that she needed to get up and go make rounds to everyone who'd been out on the last mission. It had been such a close call with Gérard, and there was no good reason to keep him waiting, not when his burn was still so bad.

She shifted in bed, eyes still squeezed shut, not wanting to face her room alone, but warm skin brushed her own, and she smiled. "Gabe?"

Everything crashed around her. Her illusion was shattered with her own words. She wasn't lying around in her bed at the Overwatch Swiss HQ. She was in Drachten. Overwatch was dead. Gérard was dead. Gabriel was dead.

"Angela, are you alright?"

Angela finally managed to convince herself to look at Fareeha who lay beside her, but she still couldn't meet Fareeha's gaze. When she opened her eyes, she was still in her bed and still surrounded by all of the sensory pleasures that she'd experienced in her half-sleep, but Fareeha was there, still watching her with a furrowed brow.

"I'm alright. I was just… confused." Angela rubbed her eyes.

Fareeha reached out with strong arms and pulled her in. "It's okay, Angela."

But Angela quickly discovered she did _not_ want to be held. Fareeha's arms felt like a straightjacket when they were meant to offer comfort, but she pulled away when Angela began to shift in slightly panicky discomfort from the tightness and heaviness just under her sternum.

Warm honeyed words met her ears as deft fingers wrapped around her own. "Angela… You don't seem alright..."

The tenseness in her chest didn't let up. "How long was I out?"

Fareeha frowned and began to pull away entirely, but Angela felt too cold without her and reached out her hand to just barely touch Fareeha's arm. "As long as you were in, I think." She rolled a bare shoulder. "Wasn't really keeping count."

"Is she okay?" The last thing Angela needed was to know that she'd been sleeping like a baby while her patient had died.

Fareeha frowned. "She's in pain."

Angela almost snorted but figured that that would look particularly asinine. "I guessed as much. She's going to be sleeping much more, and she shouldn't be sharing a bed with Lena while she recovers. She needs her own spot."

Fareeha nodded, her hair swishing against the pillow. "Lena refuses to leave her alone, so I set up an air mattress next to her bed."

Angela's mouth twitched in a tired smile despite having slept for probably eighteen hours. "For Lena, I hope."

Fareeha leaned in to kiss the corner of Angela's mouth, shifting a little closer. "Of course, dear."

Angela, not wanting to reject Fareeha, moved closer in a way and still managed to push herself up with tired bones. Fareeha didn't seem to mind one bit.

Fareeha, in fact, seemed to like it very much that Angela was taking the lead on things, but something in Angela panged. She really didn't want to go any farther than a few kisses, no matter how nice they were. Her muscles burned too badly to hold herself up for too long.

Fareeha stopped first, to Angela's surprise, her kisses suddenly breaking off into a stern look. "What is it, Angela?"

"It's not-"

Fareeha tilted her head and frowned in a way that reminded Angela too much of Ana. "Say it again, but that doesn't make it true."

Angela sagged, her whole body drooping to meet Fareeha's, her face in the pillow beside Fareeha's head. "I'm so tired."

Fareeha chuckled a little, and her hot breath whooshed by Angela's ear, but all she wanted to do was swat it away or roll away from the contact. She resisted the urge to isolate herself.

"My love…" Fareeha whispered, running her finger's down Angela's back, tickling down the sides of her spinal implant. "You did so well…"

Angela only felt cold. "I wanted to kill her."

"I know," whispered Fareeha.

Angela's body felt too heavy to even let her breathe. Instead, it found the giggles. _Those_ giggles. The kind of giggles that let everyone around you know that you were just about over the edge if not completely gone.

Angela's diaphragm hurt from the hysterical laughter, but Fareeha's strong arms held her in place - held her in reality.

She was losing too much of herself because of Reyes.

She'd already lost so much…

And she thought, just for a moment, if she could lose herself, maybe he would set the rest of them free.

"It's not going to happen that way, Angela…" Fareeha' broken voice cooed quietly.

She'd been talking her thoughts out.

She was continuing to run her mouth and say nonsense things.

She couldn't stop what was happening.

She wasn't in control of her own body.

She was barely aware of what she was doing.

"Angela, I need you to breathe."

But Angela wished she couldn't. She wished she didn't have to. Maybe then everyone would be safe.

"No, Angela… We need you here with us…" Fareeha's voice was beginning to sound more distressed.

But what if she were gone? What if they could mourn her and then move forward?

"We need you, Angela," Fareeha repeated, her arms squeezing tighter and her voice becoming more broken.

Did they really need her? Did they _really_?

" _I_ need you…" Something warm and wet hit Angela's cheeks, but she couldn't make much sense of anything other than Fareeha's words.

Nothing made sense.

"I know… I know…" Fareeha whispered, her voice thick. "It's going to be okay…"

But what if it wasn't? She couldn't feel her face.

"Even if it's not okay, Angela, we're here. We're all here. _I'm_ here…"

Would that be enough when Reyes came for them?

"Yes, my love, yes, it will be."

* * *

Angela eventually recovered from her complete dissociative episode and managed to pull on some clothes before heading to the shower. The hot water and fragrant soap managed to help her ground herself in reality even though her thoughts wandered. She mapped out a plan for herself over the next few days, which included regular visits to Amélie for caduceus treatments.

She and Mei hadn't been able to collaborate too much on the findings from Antarctica, but she knew very well that Ana and Jack were doing their best designing a new rifle to house the bullet. The bullets, plural, probably. She was mostly out of that game, but she did want to keep some tabs on it, just in case something she knew wouldn't work came into the mix. For the rest of the time, she'd be working on an implant for everyone that would be stable enough. She had Athena to run the stats and probabilities, but she still wished she had some test subjects. Then again, she kind of thought that Reyes himself was the ultimate test subject when it came down to it.

He'd shown all of the best and worst traits of the potential medication, and Angela thought she knew exactly how to distill out what she needed - the regenerative capabilities without splitting the mind. That was, supposedly, a purely mechanical thing - something with a half-life that would die rather than something that made you into…

Him.

Angela shuddered despite the hot water that stung her skin into a fresh pink and wished that she'd taken Fareeha up on her offer to join her in the shower. Fareeha knew as well as Angela that Angela was still too fuzzily dissociated out her ass to get up to any funny business, but it would have still helped to have Fareeha there to hold - to kiss - to talk to.

She couldn't depend on others all the time. She had to just… get through it on her own.

 _Now you're thinking like Lena._

Angela almost smiled to herself, a strangely mixed cocktail of feelings sliding around in her belly. She could understand Lena, she thought. She needed to _apologize_ to her more than just _understand_ , though. She'd put Lena through enough.

Angela cut the water and pulled her new towel off of the bench and wiped her face dry, taking a second to appreciate the different laundry detergent Mei had picked up while everyone was gone.

She'd put everyone through enough, and it took her almost losing one of her children, nearly dying in Brazil, meeting a Mysterious Stranger, and nearly murdering someone who'd been her close friend to realize that she needed to get off her ass and stop feeling sorry for herself.

Gabriel Reyes needed to die, and she was _going_ to help.


	57. I Wish I Knew You

Lena stretched out lazily on her air mattress, playing games Jack and Ana recommended on Hana's old handheld. The cheeky little tune bopped happily at her and the pink blob trotted across her screen, eating everything in sight.

"I fucking love you, Kirby," she whispered into the blanket pulled around her body. It was getting where she didn't really need a blanket draped over her shoulders like some unfortunate king, but she didn't rightly care. She was cozy despite her accelerator pinching from laying on her stomach.

Hana snorted at the comment, jamming her thumbs into her own controller of her own game, and Satya rolled over closer on Hana's bed to watch over Lena's shoulder.

Over the last month, Lena had been spending a lot of time in Hana's room and with Satya and Lúcio, especially. Hana hadn't been exactly the most willing participant in conversations, having more angry outbursts every day than Lena could count, and she was beginning to feel like _someone_ was going to have to tell her to stop being a huge fucking knob.

Talking with her jaw embedded into the bed was a little difficult, all things considered, but she pushed herself up enough to ask, "Do you lads wanna watch a movie tonight? It's been a while."

A decent neutral thing.

"Oh…" Satya said right away, and Lena's heart sank a little. She knew what that meant already. Satya was busy. And if _Satya_ was busy, then either Lúcio or Hana would be busy, and there went movie night.

Lena and Satya had been getting along extraordinarily well, and if she hadn't been dating Hana and Lúcio and Lena hadn't been completely 100% committed to Amélie, Lena was sure there was a way the two of them could make it work.

"Lúcio and I were going to…"

Lena nodded. "Date night. It your turn. Gotcha."

She turned her attention back to Kirby floating on a mouthful of air and was struck again with warm fuzzies. When she was much younger, she'd been very much into games in general, but she went through a pretentious phase where she purged herself of all that goodness and hadn't played many games up until recently. She just had too much time on her hands with Amélie sleeping nearly eighteen hours a day. She didn't like to have quiet hands and a loud mind. That much just hadn't changed.

She still hadn't looked up from her game for more than a glance when Hana's sneer caught her eye. She was too engrossed in her own game to do much other than grunt, and she most certainly did not notice Lena staring at her. Lena's mind kicked into high gear, wondering how to get Hana to willingly listen to Lena ream her for approximately forty solid minutes on how Hana was being a massive twat. Smoke practically drifted from her ears while she came up with the perfect plan, crafting it to perfection.

"Yo, Hana."

"Sup?"

"Wanna watch a movie while the nerds are out?"

Hana looked up and around at Lu and Satya for a moment before sharing a look with Lena, and Lena wasn't quite sure what the look said. "Just me?"

Lúcio cracked open an eye from his not-quite nap and smiled at Lena with a puppy dog grin. "Just try not to steal her heart completely, okay?"

Lena rolled her eyes. "Wouldn't dream of it."

Satya gently touched Lena's shoulder and said in a small voice, "Maybe confirm that this is what Hana also wants before making jokes?"

Lena nodded and looked back to Hana who just shrugged. "Okay, but I get to pick the movie. Last time you picked, we watched the same buddy cop comedy shit as the last two times you picked, and as much as I love it, that _cannot_ be the only thing we watch."

"But, Hana," Lena said falsely aghast. "It's for the _greater good_!"

Lúcio and Satya both perked up at the same time and echoed in monotone, "The greater good."

Hana _did_ smile at that, though, and Lena thought that it was probably because of Lu an Satya and not her own hijinks. Hana wasn't very impressed with her lately - not since they'd been able to be in the same room together. Again, Lena thought back to how easy it was over the phone when she was away from home, but once they were in the same room, it'd all fallen apart. No, it hadn't then. Hana had said something the day before Amélie's surgery… She'd killed a lot of people…

She hadn't been the same since Brazil.

And Lena never had gotten to the bottom of it all.

She'd been… Distracted. Busy.

But not any more.

It had been a month since they'd all come home - a month of cohabitation, a month of learning and growing, and a month of Sombra being a nuisance.

Amélie could afford to be on her own now, away from Lena, who was almost too worried for a time to leave her while she was sleeping. Afraid. Too afraid that Amélie would die if she were away, even though Angela assured Lena that Amélie would be fine.

Her body had reacted violently at first to having the thing taken out of her brain - convulsing and nearly killing Amélie with violent seizures. But… after that first week, she seemed to be doing a little better every day with Angela's treatments and all that rest.

"As long as I get to pick the movie, though, that's fine. I won't pause it for you if you need to piss, though."

Satya shared a look with Lena that Lena knew meant 'well, it's a start.'

* * *

Lena ducked away while Satya and Lúcio were getting ready, taking that time away from her friends to check on Amélie, who happened to be awake, for once, and reading one of Fareeha's classy lesbian paperbacks.

"Oh!" Lena chirped, a little happier than she anticipated. "You're awake!"

Amélie's eyes lingered on the page though her chin turned slightly toward Lena, just enough to let Lena know that she was listening but still tracking until the end of the sentence. "Yes, I've not been awake very long, though." She finally looked away from her book and gave Lena a tired smile. "Fareeha was kind enough to make rounds while Angela was doing her treatment and drop off some books."

Lena snickered. "Yeah. About those…"

Amélie smiled back, lowering her eyes, a blush dusting her pleasantly calf-leather brown skin. "I think that Ms. Fareeha is quite the rowdy girl under that cool exterior."

Lena shut the door behind her, grinning. "Yeah, she's… she's something else. Enjoying the content?"

Amélie placed the book down on her stomach, still turned to the page she was on when Lena had come in. "It's giving me a few ideas for when I feel better, at least."

Lena stepped over her air mattress and leaned over her bed to kiss Amélie's forehead. "How are you feeling today?"

Amélie rolled a shoulder but winced. "I'm… coming along slowly, I think."

"Better?"

"Much better overall, not much better than yesterday."

Lena leaned down again and snagged a kiss on the lips. She took a long minute to appreciate the way Amélie's hair fell so regally around her face, and it wasn't until Amélie squinted at her with a grin that Lena realized she was staring with an incredibly goofy smile. It had been a shock when Amélie came out of surgery with a short hairdo, but Lena couldn't really complain. She'd known Amélie back when her hair had been just at shoulder length. She started growing it out not long before Lena moved in with the Lacroixs.

Of course, it was a little jarring, but Lena was secretly relieved that she could touch Amélie's hair again without hurting her in casual thoughtlessness.

"Do you think you'll be alright tonight if I go hang out with Hana for a few hours?"

Amélie nodded. "You deserve a night off, chérie."

Lena rolled a shoulder. She really didn't mind helping Amélie while she was on the mend, but Amélie seemed to think that it was a huge burden for her. "You know I don't mind."

Amélie snorted. "You say that now, but when I'm old, will you say the same thing?"

Butterflies stormed the gates of Lena's stomach and sent a flare of a blush to her cheeks. "I guess we'll have to see, won't we, love?"

But something dark glimmered in Amélie's eyes that made Lena's skin crawl. Angela said that there would be some lasting, if temporary, effects of the thing in Amélie's brain giving off the Evil Brain Juice. Sometimes that manifested in expressions and movements that reminded Lena very much of Widowmaker.

"We will," Amélie purred with a little more coquetry than Lena thought she'd feel up to.

Another knock on the door drew Lena's attention away from the quick rise and fall of Amélie's chest and the glittering eyes of mischief.

Angela poked in her head with an apologetic smile. "I can… go."

Amélie waved her in, though, to Lena's dismay. "Lena was just going."

Angela hesitated with an "Uh…"

Lena gave Amélie another quick kiss on the forehead and waddled around her air mattress before walking around Angela and tugging on her sleeve to drag her outside, which drew out another uncertain sound from the older woman. Interestingly, she'd been much less self-confident since the surgery despite it being a total success, in Lena's eyes.

Angela pulled the door closed behind her as the two of them stood in the hall, and Lena felt herself staring at Angela a little too hard, trying to find something in her face that she wasn't telling Lena, as Lena had come to expect over the time the gang had been back together.

"Is she really doing alright?" Lena asked, sounding intense even to her own ears.

Angela nodded, not looking at Lena. Her arms were drawn close to her body, her hands clutching the caduceus between herself and lena, as if Lena were about to pounce on her in an attack.

"Angela, what's wrong?"

Those crystal eyes locked onto Lena's just long enough for Lena to see how genuinely _afraid_ Angela was.

"Angela…" It was a sympathetic tone, but Angela's flinch made Lena think that it came off like a warning or chastisement.

"She's doing very well," Angela said in a quiet voice. "I… I have something experimental, but I don't… I don't want her to have it."

Lena blinked and then narrowed her eyes. "Is it what you've been working on so much lately?"

Angela nodded quickly and looked away from Lena again. "You have a right to know."

Had it been a few months ago, Lena would have volunteered herself to test this experimental _thing_ that Angela had been working on, but now that Amélie was back with her, she was starting to think a little more in the longview.

"Are you done with it?"

Angela shook her head and chewed on her lips, the dark circles under her eyes amplified by the darkness of the hall. "Soon, though."

Lena put a hand on her shoulder. "We'll deal with it when we get to it, yeah?"

Angela, still staring at the same spot, nodded once. "We might have to use her, Lena."

"Excuse me?"

Angela looked up as if that phrase had slapped her. "I need to go do the treatment. Don't you have things you need to be doing?"

Lena blinked at where Angela had been standing milliseconds ago, more confused than she'd been a few minutes before. Thoughts assaulted her mind, but Lena waved them off with a gesture to herself. She needed to go have some fun with just Hana. Maybe that would fix things between them.

* * *

"You never eat popcorn," said Hana without looking up from her handheld, but she was still smiling, which was ultimately a good sign. The television was on, Athena's logo on the screen, backlit by a faint pulsing glow that let the two of them know she was nearby but not actively engaged.

Lena waddled her way over with the buttery sweetness of the snack wafting in her face every step, and really, she just wanted to lean down into her bucket and go at the greasy stuff like a horse on oats. A gentle creature craving the sweet sweet sustenance of buttery salty crunchy goodness…

"I'm even foregoing my evening tea to fully, _completely_ indulge in the _whole_ experience of movie night." She paused at Hana's snort, smiling to herself a bit as the knot in her stomach eased a bit more than she showed in her smile.

"Yeah, yeah," Hana replied, her air of cold detachment creeping back into her voice as if remembering that she had some weird personal vendetta against Lena. "Let's just get started I guess."

Lena wasn't particularly too jazzed about that sudden turn of events but decided to say nothing until maybe later. Eventually, if she kept this up, Lena would have to say _something_. Everyone was starting to get a little bit put out with Hana turning into an… an absolute _child_. She hoped it wouldn't have to be tonight, but then again, she hoped that she could just get it out of the way.

She didn't particularly think that there would be much movie watching, anyway.

"Athena? Can you hit it?"

Without another word, Athena blinked off the screen, replaced by the Warner Brothers logo that Lena had come to know and love, and the lights dimmed.

Lena wasn't even particularly interested in the movie Hana decided to make them watch at first, but she was eventually pulled into the terrible wonderful world and mediocre melodrama. But it had Keanu Reeves in it, which was the only man she would ever think twice about, so that gave her enough reason to watch it, she guessed.

She wondered why Hana hadn't ever shared this one with her since she seemed to be enjoying herself to the point where she put down her handheld and had her unblinking eyes completely transfixed on the screen. It was slightly unnerving to Lena to watch her blink once every minute or two.

 _Maybe that's how she plays games?_

But it looked too much like Sombra and how she didn't have to blink very often except to refocus her lenses.

Lena slurped on her coke and occasionally passed the popcorn bucket to Hana when Hana decided to move from her completely statuesque, folded-leg and very upright position to thrust out an arm without looking away from the screen whereupon she'd just short of snatch the popcorn away from Lena and cram a too-big handful into her mouth and munch for a very long time.

Despite enjoying herself for the most part, Lena found herself slipping off into thought about Hana. She'd been too erratic lately, which probably meant she wasn't sleeping. Not sleeping probably meant that she was alone in her room while Lu and Satya took Zarya's old room since she'd finally given up the appearance of having her own and moved in with Mei. Being alone probably meant that she was finding more new ways to kick herself around and hate herself a little more for whatever she was upset about, but she was still too tight lipped to come out and say anything.

" _I killed a lot of people in the field, Lena."_

She hadn't been sure what to do with that. They'd all killed people in the field. Hana wasn't even a _stranger_ to killing people when a bossman told her to pull a trigger. She'd been in the Korean army for christssake.

" _Doesn't make you a bad person."_

Lena knew that Hana had overcome a lot on her own - alone. A kid. But she wasn't really afforded the luxury of childhood past the fall from innocence, which would have still been too young, but then again, that was everyone who'd entered into Overwatch or been drafted like Jesse.

A pang of memory lanced her thoughts.

Pulling the trigger on the scientist in Alice Springs, his hot blood bathing her like an unholy baptism.

 _Doesn't make you a bad person_.

Lena had struggled with that on her own, just like she knew Hana was struggling. But there was something different there between the two of them.

Lena had gone and had to find herself again - find a reason to convince herself that her life was worth more than recompense for the things she'd done, and frankly, Hana still felt like her life was worth less than even the most horrendous criminal.

Brazil had changed her, this much Lena already knew, but it didn't help her into adulthood.

It had made her regress.

Lena looked over at Hana, her face illuminated by the television, and glittering streaks tracked down her heart shaped face in wobbling rivers.

"Woah, Hana. Are you okay?"

 _Absolutely brilliant, Oxton._

Hana didn't look away or say anything. She just kept watching the movie like Lena wasn't even there. Her shoulders shook from time to time and new bouts of tears fell, but she didn't waiver from her strict posture.

Lena wasn't even remotely invested in the movie anymore, no matter how good it was.

"Hana?"

There was a long silence only interrupted by the sharp cracks and screeching whirs of the movie.

"This was my favorite movie to watch with my squad back home."

Her voice was just loud enough to be heard, and Lena almost went for the remote to turn down the television but decided against it in case it would scare of Hana from talking.

"We watched these movies all the time. We laughed, and we quoted, and we thought these were the hot shit, you know?"

Lena didn't bother to interrupt, feeling like she was coming to her own breakthrough, but apprehension was still more than a little prevalent in her gut. Something other than the misplaced tears and stony silence seemed so very _wrong_.

"I haven't watched any of these in years, honestly. The last time was when I went out and killed my crew."

Lena blinked and shifted, nearly sending the bucket off into the floor and popcorn just absolutely everywhere.

 _That_ was a hell of a way to phrase it.

"It's all my fault anyway." She didn't even look at Lena while she mumbled away. "Just like Brazil."

Brazil.

Lena set the popcorn bucket down on the floor and folded her legs up under her, leaning toward Hana's recliner.

"I led them into a trap and fought hard, but I was fighting as a team and organized it into disposable units. I tried to save them, but I didn't… I didn't think of sacrificing myself. I thought about clearing the area. I thought about living to fight another day." She took a shaky breath, and her fingers started twisting over one another in complete fidget mode. "I fought to end the battle instead of ending the war."

Lena's unease reached a new level listening to Hana's hollow voice, her emotions dead and gone, thinking about how eerily similar to Widowmaker she sounded. Her arms tightened around herself in a protective embrace. Widowmaker still talked in Amélie's sleep.

"I helped kill my only family then, and when I went to Brazil, I promised myself that I would hurt as few people as possible." Her watering eyes moved to Lena's, but her body remained as rigid as steel. "It's easier to kill omnics and not feel remorse than it is to kill people, Lena. You can't tell me it isn't different."

Lena, in fact, could. But she didn't say anything.

Letting Hana say things she probably didn't completely mean seemed more appropriate than jumping in and interrupting this catharsis.

"If it hadn't been for Sombra, Lúcio would be dead, and I would have led him there. I would have been the one to push him in front of the bullet. I would have killed him too, and then I would have to wear another mark on my face."

Dawning realization ate at Lena like a flesh-eating bacteria - slowly, then all at once. The now-yellow marks didn't seem as cutesy anymore.

Hana snorted, her body collapsing into her large recliner from the rigid position like one of those wooden dolls whose base you push and they fall down. "Hell, my whole body should be marked after that explosion. They were just doing their jobs, and I ended their lives. I ended so many fucking lives."

Lena crept out of her own recliner to sit on the arm of Hana's, careful not to bump Hana's legs off. She had to scoot the remote table away, but she could still wiggle onto the armrest without making too much of a fuss.

"Fucking Torb-hell and his fucking 'fix-ups.'" She was laughing a sobbing laugh, covering her eyes. "I knew something was wrong when I ran a diagnostic. Lena, I know how to build a MEKA from the ground up. I know how to make one with scrap parts and junk heaps. I should have listened to my gut like fucking _always_ , but I chose to trust someone else's judgment just like I did then." Her whole body shuddered with another sob, and Lena risked putting a reassuring hand on Hana's knee. "They should have all been able to get away from the blast before it happened. It was just supposed to scare them."

"Then I come home and you're in pieces, and Amélie looks like she's holding the knife, and _fuck_ I wanted to hate her, Lena. I wanted to hate her so badly, but she's been nothing but kind and nice, and I wanted Lúcio to break it off with me because of Brazil, and he wouldn't do it. He wouldn't fucking leave me. Satya wouldn't either, and I'm so… _angry_ that they won't just _leave me alone_. I'm angry at _you_ for not leaving me alone. I'm angry at you for _trying_ to help me." Her words went from sorrow to utter rage in the span of two seconds. "You knew how I felt about you, and you were okay with it instead of pushing me away. Lena, I fucking deserve to be alone. I deserve to be left to die. No one else should get hurt because of me, and no one will leave me alone long enough to _just. let. me. die._ "

" _I never die! I can't die! I'm D. va! I'm Hana fucking Song!"_

Lena winced as though Hana slapped her across the face. She'd been there not too long ago. She'd been there and been in the thick of it, waking up from a dead sleep in her home country underneath a scratchy blanket on her naked body, realizing that she _didn't_ want to die. And here Hana was suffering the same but without the realization.

For the first time, Lena spoke, her words soft, barely audible, "Hana, do you have anything to live for?"

" _Unfortunately_ ," she spat, scrubbing her face vigorously. "And I resent them all."

Lena's heart simply ached for the younger girl, and she offered her hand, not sure what else to say. Hana took it, squeezing too tightly.

"I wish I'd been the one to take the explosion years ago, and if it could have saved those people, I would have done it a month ago."

"But you didn't," Lena said matter-of-factly, feeling a bit worn down from reliving her own crisis.

"I fucked up, Lena, and now everyone hates me."

Lena shook her head. "Yeah, you might have whacked it up a bit, but there's nothing you can't fix."

"What if I don't want to fix it?"

A flash in the pan went and burned off any sympathy that Lena had for Hana. Lena had been dealing with something similar. They all had. Hana, at that point, wasn't any different from the rest of them, and they at least tried to deal with it as best they could. Angela wasn't perfect and did horrible things, but she'd been working her ass off to correct it. Jesse had led a horrible life and swung too heavily toward a polluted version of justice, but he was working his way into getting better. Jack went from believing in an organization - in people - to being an isolated loner filled with vigilante justice, but he was trying his damndest to change back into the loving Captain Jack he used to be.

Straight backed and stone faced, Lena said, "Could you just stop being a fucking knob and think about someone else for a minute?"

Hana's snuffling paused before it started back in full force.

Lena fought rolling her eyes and put her hand back on Hana's exposed, furry knee. "Listen, love, you're acting like an absolute asshole. Everyone's trying to help, and having a pity party isn't going to do anything, yeah? It's just gonna make it worse. We're _here_ for you, dumbass, and we aren't going anywhere."

"Fuck off, Lena," Hana mumbled, weakly shooing away Lena's hand, which Lena moved without really being persuaded by the weeping willow of a girl.

"Nah, mate. You're acting like I did, and we both know everyone was pissed at me."

"But then you left!" Hana shouted, squeezing her eyes closed, more shiny tears falling.

"But I came _back_ , and I did what I went to do. Did I handle it right? Nah…" Lena kept her voice quiet and Hana clutched at Lena's hand in some bizarre comfort in her anger. "But I came back, Hana."

The pain in Lena's fingers eased as Hana's strength waned. "Why can't you just leave me alone…"

"Because I love you, Hana. You know that."

Another sob.

"I'm not going anywhere, no matter how shitty you get."

A laugh through a sob.

"If you want to die, Hana, maybe we should find something worth living for…"

A groan. Her hands were starting to shake.

That pitiful little sound nearly drove Lena nuts, sending her guts gnawing at one another in the same way they always had when she heard a baby crying. "Hana…"

"I'm so fucking embarrassed," she mumbled through a sobbing hiccup.

But she didn't push Lena away.

"Embarrassed?" Lena pushed, a little uncertain if this would further their conversation or end it right then and there.

"I'm blubbering like an idiot. It's stupid."

Lena shook her head. "Nah, love. It's feelings. They don't have to make sense."

Lena's heart squeezed again and her popcorn felt a little heavy in her stomach as Hana smiled up with watery eyes, cheeks red and raw from embarrassment and crying.

"Why do you stick around, Lena?"

It wasn't an indictment this time, and Lena answered truthfully, grinning like an ass.

"Well, Hana… You're my favorite deputy."


	58. Goat

"Lena, how did you manage to rope me into doing all of this mess?"

Lena couldn't help the bubble of pride that swelled in her chest and set her cheeks on fire. Hana poked around at the several books she'd emotionally purchased while sad and seemed a bit overwhelmed and disappointed in them all.

"Like… I knew that there was a bunch of stuff for all this, but I've never really had time to do any of it. With my old squad, all we did was play games to improve strategy." She ran her fingers apprehensively over the glossy cover of a fairly ancient Dungeons and Dragons manual that Jack managed to scrounge up from his younger days. "I mean… do you think I'm gonna be any good at it?"

Lena shrugged. "I mean, I think so, love, but if you don't want to, then it's okay."

Hana shook her head vigorously. "No, I wanna take a crack at it, at least. We have a lot of people though, so I don't know how that's going to work.

Just realizing how hard it would be to play with so many people, Lena rubbed her cheek in thought before the light bulb clicked on and burned brightly. "Hey! You know who you can ask!"

Hana blinked at Lena blankly. "Lena, if I knew that, I wouldn't bother to ask you."

Lena stuck her tongue out like the mature adult she was.

Hana punched her with a smile that Lena hadn't seen in a good long while.

A week had passed since the incident while watching movies, and since then, Lena and Hana had been a lot like their old selves - poking at one another, making crude jokes, and mostly making fun of Jesse when the opportunity presented itself.

Lena began talking more quickly as her excitement grew. "Listen, love, Amélie is a fucking pro at all this, and I'm sure that Ana and Jack could give you pointers. Hell, you know how good Reinhardt is at telling stories. I bet Rein used to DM for them all."

Hana made an entirely skeptical face. "Amélie used to DM?"

Lena snorted. "No, but can you imagine? No, she didn't play much or anything like that, but sometimes, when Gérard was sick, she would substitute for him, and she was damn good at it."

"I can't really imagine her doing any of this nerd shit," Hana said bluntly, picking up Satya's brush and moving it to the bookshelf so that she could open one of the glossy paged books.

A gruesome image far surpassing anything Lena had thought she'd seen in her time of messing around with the roleplaying game sprawled on the page.

"Wow… That beholder really let themselves go after tenth edition."

Hana snorted. "I mean… If you'd been around that long, don't you think you'd get a little… gelatinous and weird?"

Lena shrugged. "I guess we'll find out."

Hana cut a look over at Lena that she almost missed if it hadn't been for Hana stopping mid-turn of a page. Lena did her best to shrug it off by throwing a D10 at Hana.

There were still moments between them that would probably never be the same after Brazil - after Kings Row 2.0.

Lena took a breath and shuffled a few books around with the sneaking suspicion that Hana was thinking about the same thing. A heaviness settled on the two of them - something much heavier than stacks of books and notebooks and guides and ancient Chessex dice, but a knock on the door made Lena more relieved than irritated. They still needed time to get back to how things used to be, and sometimes that required a bit of intrusion, which Lena had arranged with Athena who only felt a _little_ weird about the whole thing.

In exchange, Lena promised that she'd help her sift through some data she'd been meaning to get around to for too long. The ship needed a tune-up, and Lena was the only one who felt confident enough to take a gander at it after being teleported back from Brazil's base camp.

Jesse poked his head in once Hana yelled a noncommittal sound of assent. He was grinning like a jackass eating briars but his hair was pulled back into a high ponytail that almost didn't hold the hair he'd recently cut. "Hey, y'all, it's gettin' a lil bit on in the evenin'. Y'all comin' on down to the dinner table, or can we just eat your portion?"

Hana groaned. "Please tell me it isn't curry."

Jesse made a fart noise, and it struck Lena how easy everything had become. "Shit naw. You seen Fareeha or Ana in the kitchen today? Hell. Even Satya. No, it's the purple chick. She's actually been workin' on it off and on all day. Looks like enough to feed an army."

Lena didn't follow Hana in the obligatory eye roll, though, and her mind started going a mile a minute trying to figure out what the catch might be. Every single interaction with Sombra had been a give and take - an exchange of information or goods or… anything. Tit for tat. About every single thing. Constantly.

Her knuckle popped before she realized how much she was flexing her hands in the form of clenching her fists over and over. It was a little habit she'd picked up at some point, but she hadn't noticed when it started. One day, she just started noticing little things about herself - mostly because Amélie would point them out.

" _Does your leg hurt, chérie?"_

" _Uh, no, not really." Her leg only hurt her when it rained, now._

" _You're rubbing it again."_

" _Oh."_

"Yeah, well, I mean, I guess we should get moving. I'll help Amélie get up and around," Lena mumbled, chewing on the nail of her ring finger while she fiddled with Reinhardt's gift ring on the leather cord around her neck. She hadn't given it to Amélie yet, and she didn't know when she would, but she wanted it to be before they had their final showdown.

A little voice chided her, though, telling her that it was still too soon.

 _No, it's been long enough._

Hana just nodded and started replacing a few books back in their boxes as Jesse retreated. "Hey, Lena?"

Lena hadn't moved and stared at the door, still a bit lost in thought. "Yeah?"

"What's this?"

Lena turned, dragging her eyes away from the silver doorknob like breaking a magnetic connection - not at all then all at once.

Hana held a little rectangular box in her hands with a few two inch, poorly painted plastic figures laying in their little slots. "It was in Jack's box of stuff."

Lena walked over to look down at the box, feeling a bit uneasy and too much like she wanted to procrastinate helping Amélie get into her chair. It always hurt Lena to know she was hurting Amélie, even _if_ she was trying to help. "Miniatures?"

Hana frowned. "Looks like there's one missing."

Lena pulled one out - a warrior figure with a great barrel chest and blond hair, holding a sword with both hands. "Definitely miniatures. Where'd you get these?"

"They look like ass, but they were in Jack's box. I just said that."

Lena agreed about the paint job, but still. They were Jack's. She put the figure back in it's little slot and shrugged. "I dunno, but maybe you should ask Satya to make us minis when we all get our characters made."

When she looked back up at Hana, Hana was absolutely beaming. "That would be a great idea!"

A hollow feeling returned to Lena's chest just under her sternum, and she couldn't smile back without feeling like her face was going to break. She was still having bouts of this, no matter how hard she tried to fight it. Seeing everyone get along so well after so much trouble was a strange mix of feelings for Lena of intense longing and melancholy happiness. Everything was just a little bit tainted.

As she walked back to her room, she wondered what it would be like not to feel that little bit of haze tugging at the corners of her every aspect. It was easier to ignore when she was hunting for Amélie - it gave her something to hold onto. A purpose. A goal.

But now that she had Amélie there with her, that sadness - that empty, clawing void - was harder to ignore even though it was easier to cope with. Something about that contradiction faded a little back into the back of Lena's mind as she saw Amélie propping herself up and sitting completely upright on her own. One delicately warm hand clutched her forehead, and her cheeks were flushed with pain.

"Amélie?" The came came out so quietly that Lena almost didn't hear it for herself.

Lena's beloved didn't move or right away, but her grimace settled into pursed lips and an uncomfortable furrowed brow. Her honey colored eyes gazed intently at Lena for a half a second before she said, "I'm fine."

Lena snorted, half in relief and half in irritation, and walked into the room, closing the door behind her. "You sure look it."

Amélie smiled weakly. "It's… I'm tired of everyone doing things for me."

Lena rested a hand on Amélie's and sat next to her on a vacant spot on the bed. "You've always been stubborn. Why stop now?"

Amélie leaned over and rested her head on Lena's shoulder. "I'm tired now. Can we crawl into bed together and just… enjoy it for a while? We haven't gotten to in so long."

Butterflies assaulted Lena's stomach with torches and pitchforks, and her ears heated up before her cheeks. She couldn't look at Amélie right then without thinking about everything that had happened for both of them. "I guess we could try sleeping in the same bed tonight, if you're feeling up for it."

Amélie nodded slowly. "Angela's treatments are… intense."

They sat there for a time, hand in hand, Amélie's head resting on Lena's shoulder, and Lena with her lips against Amélie's warm, soft skin.

But Lena was the first one to break the moment like a glass countertop with a hammer of words. "Dinner's ready, apparently."

Amélie sighed in the way that made Lena know she was irritated with something but wasn't about to pursue the topic. "Yeah, Fareeha came to tell me and ask if I needed some help."

Lena smiled, but it didn't feel completely genuine. "Waited for me, did you?"

Amélie nodded again slowly. She wasn't about to wrench her head around like an idiot, thank god.

"Lena… Are you alright?"

Lena looked at Amélie full on to see her chewing on her bottom lip, eyes intense and filled with heaviness.

"You've been… kinda distant since the thing with Hana."

Lena rolled the shoulder away from Amélie in a shrug. "I dunno. We should talk about it later, probably." Seeing the flash of fear in Amélie's eyes, she quickly amended, "It's nothing big, and it's nothing you did."

Amélie frowned but squeezed Lena's hand. "Come on, chérie. I'm a bit hungry."

* * *

The dinner table had three extra chairs and plates at it, much to everyone's initial oversight then confusion.

Amélie was borrowing a spare wheelchair and pushed herself back and forth idly with her left foot while everyone else loaded up their plates high with a family style dinner. She kept shooting dirty looks at Sombra, which Lena couldn't blame her for. Once Amélie had started being conscious for more than a few minutes at a time, she would ramble on and on about how terrible the little woman was under all that glitz and glamor. It was mostly the drugs, but Lena knew there was truth in those ramblings.

Jack was the first to kick back with a plate full of delicious food - thick empanadas, chock-full tamales, a side of birria with bright yellow broth, shredded and saucy chicken, and what Sombra called Chilaquiles a la Cena, which Lena was pretty sure were just chilaquiles with more cheese. Ana, though, was the first to start eating, pulling an empanada off the plate and shoving it directly in her mouth.

"Holy shit, these are better than Gabe's."

Jesse blinked. "You're shittin' me."

She shook her head fervently, a little bit of crust still on the corner of her mouth.

Jesse was next to dig in, and Lena watched Sombra sitting back with a smug, feline smile all over her pretty little face.

"You know, I'm more than just a pretty little face," she said with the purring voice she always had. "I'm a chef. I'm a hacker. I'm a genuine transportation service."

Angela shared a look with Fareeha that Lena felt like she shouldn't have seen, but Amélie broke her concentration, her quiet voice making everyone pause. She wasn't someone who spoke all the time in a group, but when she _did_ speak, everyone listened.

"Who are you bringing here, Sombra?" Her words were short, clipped, and nearly lethal.

The way she gripped her knife unsettled Lena deeply because she'd seen Widowmaker grip cutlery the same way. She probably even held the knife that way when…

Sombra groaned, throwing her forearm across her eyes. "Why must you take all of the fun out of my parties, Amélie? That was supposed to be a surprise!"

Amélie didn't blink, and Lena started to sweat. The remnants of Widowmaker made her into who she was now, but they still frightened Lena. Made her uncomfortable. Made her worried about her wellbeing and everyone else's.

"Enough, Sombra," she commanded, barely raising her voice a hair.

Everyone at the table shifted, setting down plates and turning their gazes toward the woman at the head of the table. Even Winston rested his giant, shaggy elbow on the table and looked at her expectantly.

The sour little feeling in Lena's stomach spread to the rest of her body, making her both hot and cold at the same time. Other than Amélie's hard eyes, Jesse looked too ready to leap and tear through the woman. Genji's eyes were shifting around and his fingers fidgeted on the table, drifting to the knife beside his plate. Angela's hand was under the table, probably on the hilt of her pistol. Satya looked ready to throw a shield, if need be.

Breathing was all that broke the tense, overdue, pregnant silence in the room.

A fork clattered to the ground, and everyone's chairs slid out at the same time. Four pistols trained on the woman in the span of half a second.

She just put her hands up, one eyebrow quirked and a smile on her face. "Oh, you all are so _suspicious_. I went to the trouble to make you such a nice dinner and this is the thanks I get." But she didn't look insulted despite her tone.

"They should be landing in the living room about… now."

Sure enough, as Lena spun to put her back to the table and her body toward the rest of the living room, three figures crashed to the ground in a large pile, and one just appeared on the rug in the middle of the room. A water glass that was sitting too close to the edge of the table crashed to the floor, dousing the hardwood and carpet alike.

"Get _off_ of me, you filthy animal!" raged a familiar voice that made Lena's heart do backflips (but not the good kind).

"I'm goin'! I'm goin'! I'm goin'! You're sooooo impatient. I told you it would go all wonko as soon as we-"

" **we're here.** "

A filthy blonde rat of a young man wriggled his way out from under a massive mountain of tattooed fleshman, and the tattooed fleshman rolled off of a willowy young woman with ginger red hair and a scowl amid a thousand freckled stars. She heaved a sigh, her eyes still closed, and poked at her ribs.

"No, they're still all there," she mumbled.

Jack was the first to move. He rubbed his eyes, dragged his hand down his face, opened his mouth and closed it again, and put his hands in front of his scarred mouth almost like he was praying before lowering his hands to point all of his fingers at Sombra while still pressing the heels of his hands against his chin. " _Sombra, what in the goddamn can you for once stop dropping everyone on the floor like that's how people get hurt I cannot believe you but yes I can if you had anything do to with Gabe this would be exactly something he would do and I cannot believe I have a mini Gabe Jr. at my fucking dinner table Sombra holy fucking shit can you stop grinnin' like a jackass for two fuuuckin seconds._ "

While the ratboy and the giant man sat, inspecting their nonexistent injuries. Emily lay sprawled on the floor, looking around a little confused and definitely irritated.

Angela slumped to the table, her head in her hands, and Fareeha went to comfort her. When Fareeha asked what was wrong, Angela half laughed, half sobbed, "How am I supposed to keep any fucking _groceries_ in this godforsaken _frat house_?"

Ana nudged Angela's shoulder. "I could get some of those beer hats, if it'll really set the vibe."

Genji and Jesse still stood at the ready before Zenyatta and Jack nearly simultaneously jerked their idiot boyfriends' arms down.

Lúcio and Satya exchanged looks with Hana, but Hana just rolled her eyes. "Fantastic. Now I have to plan for three other players and a Bastion unit. How is a fucking Bastion unit even functional? Are we just not gonna talk about it?"

"Dweet dweet dweet!" chirped Bastion.

Lena plopped herself back down in her dining chair, looking at the ridiculous scene before her as Torb The Useless Dad was chastised brutally again by Angela. "Amélie?"

Amélie turned, her eyebrows almost ascending her forehead and into open space. "Yes, chérie?"

"Why does everything happen so much?"

Amélie just shook her head slowly in response, looking incredibly, _incredibly_ tired.

* * *

After introductions were made and there was a good long awkward moment between reuniting the world's worst dad and his slammin daughter, everyone piled around the dinner table and started eating again. Except Zenyatta and Bastion. They just kinda… mimed eating.

Reinhardt had the honor of sitting next to Emily and he and Ana separated the awkward reuiniting family. There was catching up to do and words of chastisement and joy spreading around along with the dissapearing food on the table.

Amélie, Lena noticed, was coiled tightly like a snake, ready to strike in a moment. Her eyes shot around most often resting on Sombra, Emily, Jesse, and Angela. Lena couldn't really blame her. Even if Widowmaker had had no lasting influence on her, Amélie was still always a slightly suspicious person even though she was warm. Any dog that bit her once was a dog she would never fully trust again. Emily, though… Her preoccupation with Emily cracked the shell of Lena's hollowness and filled her with confusion and amusement.

To Lena's surprise, conversation remained light and happy until it diminished with full tummies, which is when Sombra rose to put an end to all things good and pleasant, as she does.

"Now that you're all here, we can _finally_ get down to business." She smiled wide, and Lena noticed everyone tensing again, the lax and lazy smiles on their faces fading into neutral masks and hard frowns. "This is it, everyone."

She turned, and Lena saw Amélie looking not at her enemy but at Jesse, who held eye contact with Amélie for a time before nodding and putting his fuck-off huge revolver on the table. Lena whipped around to Amélie, feeling a pang of panic before she saw Amélie grinning wickedly with Widowmakers smile.

Lena squeezed Amélie's hand involuntarily, trying to pull her back to herself, and that seemed to be enough to remind Amélie of who she was. The grin faded, and a look of confusion took its place until she trained her eyes back on Sombra's back. Sheer stubborn determination.

Lena's heart skipped, which she was _convinced_ made her ears hot.

With a sweeping motion, Sombra flung up several screens at once behind her - holograms but stable on their own. Each one proclaimed a purple-tinted loop of different feeds - a black wraith lurking at the ruins of somewhere too familiar.

Someone blew out a heavy breath, and Lena's skin felt too tight on her arms and skull and her bra was suddenly two sizes too small.

Her lips tingled with pathetic numbness.

The Between's familiar, phantasmal fingers wrapped delicately around her throat and stole the breath right from her lungs.

She almost didn't even notice when Amélie's lips brushed her ear - her question so distant that Lena couldn't process it.

Her scalp felt the pull of Reaper's gauntleted hand on her hair, throwing her down onto a rock that all but drilled into her skull. The piercing lance of pain flashed through her head like a sawed off pipe had been driven through her skull and brain.

The squealing and squeaking of squeezed knuckles brought Lena back to her senses, and she glanced down to find Amélie's delicate fingers squeezing her own desperately. Lena, still minorly dazed, looked up in Amélie's fearful eyes. Finding herself a little more corporeal than a few seconds ago, Lena was able to find her fingers and squeeze back.

Amélie just gave a small nod and turned her solemn attention back to Sombra. Her eyes followed the figure - Reaper (no, he was human. He was Gabriel Reyes.) - with intensity just shy of Widowmaker's unblinking chilly rage. Something, though, burned so intensely in her eyes.

"It's time he dies," said Sombra simply, turning back to face everyone.

Ana put her hand on the table with a quiet thud. "I have a confession, it seems."

Amélie's sharp eyes turned to Ana like a raptor keenly watching a rodent.

Angela was the one to respond, her lips as pale as the rest of her. "What is it, Ana?"

Ana looked down in… shame? Was the old bird even capable of shame? She'd never even seemed like the type of person to feel any emotions, much less _shame_. When she looked up again, she looked at her daughter, eyes heavy with a burden that even Lena could see.

"I can't do it," she whispered.

She didn't need to elaborate.

Amélie was next to move, and she moved so quickly that Lena was nearly sure that she would fall over from her chair. She slapped her hand down on the table so hard that everyone's water glasses rippled with the impact. Lena watched as her jaw set and her eyes went hard and her voice came out in a low monotone.

"I take Ana's position."

Angela started to protest, putting up a hand, but Mei stopped her. "I think that trading snipers would be a very good idea."

Jesse grunted. "I don't like it very much, but I don't see what alternative we have." He dipped his head toward Amélie. "It ain't that I don't trust ya, it's just that… Hmmm… It's _him_."

Amélie nodded once, curtly, and a glow started just below Lena's navel - a glow that had been so far extinguished in Amélie's pain that it was startling when it flared to life.

"That's why I want to do it," she stated matter-of-factly. "If one of his lovers can't do it, then I think one of his _victims_ should get to pull the trigger."

Everyone but Junkrat fell silent, and _he_ dropped his fork noisily onto his plate before saying, "Whoever made that needs a big ol' kiss on the lips. Roadie, how come you never cook for me like that? I'm your partner!"

Roadhog - Mako - stared down at Junkrat from inside his mask, and the smaller man withered under the glare.

"Fine, fine, fine, be all mysterious like all your new friends," he grumbled petulantly. He jabbed a finger at Lena. "Tracy's got the right idear, lookin' around an' all that."

Thirty-nine eyes all fell on Lena, including Athena and Zenyatta.

"You…" Satya, of all people, started. "You called yourself… Tracy?"

She covered her mouth with a delicate hand, trying to shield and stifle the smile growing on her face. Her shoulders started shaking with delicate giggles, but Fareeha was the one who guffawed out loud first, slamming her fist on the table repeatedly as tears simply _poured_ from her eyes. Zarya and Mei lost it not much later, and everyone else followed suit, even the ones who knew about her infinite creative shame.

"Hey!" She protested, her cheeks aflame and her honor damaged. "I'm a _pilot_ , not an artist! I can't think of cool shit on the fly!"

Amélie's thin shoulders shook with her stifled laughs, but she leaned over, gasping a little from the motion, and kissed Lena's temple. "Oh, it's quite alright, chérie."

"It's ridiculous!" bellowed Zarya, shaking Fareeha's shoulder with one hand, but Fareeha had just simply given up and buried her face in her arms which were folded across the table. Her whole body shook from laughing.

None of this laughter, though, made Lena feel hollow and put off and away from everyone. No, this laughter, even at her expense, made her… happy.

She leaned back in her chair and comfortably played with Amélie's short hair while she laughed along with everyone else, remembering a time when Amélie would have turned and possibly killed her for the action.

Suddenly, everything felt less… daunting to Lena. Suddenly, everything felt like it was falling into place. Her detachment from Amélie had been a normal reaction on hindsight - too afraid to be close, too afraid of hurting her, too afraid of calling upon Widowmaker, too afraid of _Widowmaker_ hurting her… But now, not so much. Things were easier, and though Amélie still wasn't fully Amélie anymore, Lena wasn't the same Lena she'd been five or six years ago either.

And, god, she just loved Amélie too much to care.

Lena's eyes made a round around the table and connected with Emily's, but Emily didn't look sad. She looked… rather happy for Lena. She nodded once, and the conflict in Lena's stomach dissolved when she smiled back.

Junkrat still didn't quite know what was funny, but he was laughing all the same.

Sombra seemed a little put out that no one was being _nearly_ was theatrical as she, but she relinquished her hold on the night and grumbled quiet thanks for everyone's compliments on the foods. Lena only barely caught how she even offered a human sliver of herself to Jack by talking about getting a recipe from Gabe and enhancing it with some of her own preferences.

Amélie nudged her and shared a pleased look when Hana started laughing again, this time at Lúcio and some of his antics involving one of his dreads, a fork, and some light projection with Satya's arm. The pleasure turned to melancholy for a moment - a passing cloud over otherwise sunshiney territory.

Lena squeezed her hand and leaned a little closer to her to not call attention to the two of them. "Do you wanna go back to the room?"

Amélie pulled back a bit with a smile that made Lena's heart start skipping and her head fill with helium, but that was still… that was still off the table right? She was still too fragile right?

Amélie didn't seem to care too much about that possibility from the way her fingers trailed up and down Lena's thigh.

But…

The two of them were interrupted in their staredown by Hana, who smacked the table with her palm, making Lena and Amélie both start a little. Why was everyone slapping everything…

"Okay, everyone! I've decided. I'm into nerd shit now, so get your character sheets and get to work. It's Wednesday now, so by Friday, I want to be able to get this ship rolling." She pointed at Roadhog and Junkrat and Emily. "You too, you know. If we're going to be a team, we need to work on strategy, and what better way to work on strategy than a shitty ass RPG led by yours truly."

Lena felt herself smiling before she realized it.

 _That_ confidence. _That_ smile. _That_ was her friend. And _that_ was the true Hana Song, back in action.


	59. Bottom of the Deep Blue Sea

_Who knew I could still get cold_? He thought as he drifted between cracked concrete and rubble and detritus that hadn't been cleared away for so long. It'd been over five years since the explosion at the Swiss Headquarters, and no one had bothered to try to clean it up.

It almost made him sad. Almost.

If he'd been capable of feeling anything other than that frigid burning in his chest, he might have felt something. Anything.

Cold was it. Cold was all he felt.

He couldn't remember the warmth of Ana's lips from where he stood, gazing at the flagpole. He could remember the heat of Jack's breath on his neck though he knew he should have been able to when he looked at the left corner of the HQ's massive roof where they met so many times before they stopped trying to hide.

It wasn't like it used to be.

It wasn't like growing up half-scared and in the closet.

It was okay, now.

 _No,_ he chastised himself. _Things will never be okay again._

He was a sexless thing. He was an alien. A creature.

He didn't know why he _should_ feel any of those _human_ sensations.

He didn't even know why he was here, sometimes.

His mind wasn't what it used to be.

He drifted back into the building itself.

Every part of that godforsaken building brought back memories he'd fought to keep buried for so long, but now they were coming back in a rush.

He remembered that Halloween so long ago when Angela had talked him into making acceptable and functional outfits for everyone based on design preferences instead of the garish blue that Overwatch had promoted for so long. He remembered holding her close after undressing her so slowly that she trembled with excitement.

He remembered the way the receptionist at the front desk would avoid his eyes.

He remembered being brought a scrawny, too-small, underfed kid covered in blood with a bad attitude. He remembered the way he'd laughed so hard he cried when the kid headbutted Jack plain in the face and Jack came stumbling out angry and swearing. He remembered offering that kid a deal.

He remembered the way Ana watched him like an eagle when Angela came around, the anger in her eyes and the spite on her tongue. She didn't want to be second best. She accused him of trying to feel like a young man again. She accused him of treating her like a dried out, dried up old hag.

He remembered telling her she was right.

He remembered the young doctor Angela Ziegler's face as he was immersed into a tank that ate away at him and tore every molecule away from his body. He remembered the way she looked away in horror at what had happened. The way his body couldn't hold together for a time. He remembered the fear in her eyes every single day after that. And he hated it.

He hated her for doing this to him and then leaving him.

 _You know that's not what did it. You terrified her from the start, but she was too young to feel like she could say no._

Phantom flames licked his skin.

" _Gabe, please. Please take my hand," she begged, her delicate arm pushing through the rubble and the flame._

 _He wanted to break her arm - pin her there so that she would die in his place. She'd done this. She'd been the one to push him to Talon. She'd been the one to push him to refuge. And_ _ **she'd**_ _been the one who just left her things out to be taken and twisted - to make him into what he was now. She'd been the one who made everyone turn on him. She was the root cause._

" _I'll kill you!"_

" _Gabe,_ _ **please**_ _, you're going to_ _ **die**_ _!"_

" _Then let me! Just! Let! Me! Die!"_

He remembered her sobs.

He remembered her pain.

It drove him mad in that moment back then.

 _He pushed his way out of the debris and the fire and the smoke and threw her back with the force of the movement. His "supersoldiering," as they insisted on calling it, allowed him that gift, at least. She lay broken on the floor, her eyes rolled back in her head, and for a panicked second, he was convinced he'd killed her. Part of him rejoiced. Part of him started to lean down to check her pulse._

 _The whole of him jerked to the right as a horrible pain lit his ribs on fire, and his hand went to the searing area only to pull away covered in blood._

" _Stay the_ _ **fuck**_ _away from her, and never let me see your goddamn face again, Gabriel."_

The present Reaper felt his face contort in a snarl and felt his skin start pulsing with his thrumming heart.

" _I thought you loved me, Jack."_

 _The Jack in his memory shook his head. "I thought you loved_ _ **her**_ _."_

Like a coward, Reaper made his escape then. Jack spent the rest of that time trying to find him. Trying to _kill_ him.

No, his memories… his memories were misplaced. Weren't they?

No.

No…

But… Yes. His memories were imperfect and muddled and mixed with time and drugs and apathy and war.

Remembering… Remembering made him into a vengeful spirit that haunted his old stomping grounds. A memory, himself. Fragmented and drifting.

Remembering, though...

Remembering sent his body into a firey inferno that was only matched by his mind's fever in all of the different threads of thought - all of the pieces and fragments - falling together in a terrible puzzle of realization that ripped him completely apart from any understandable form. His very molecules burned and stretched, and for a moment, he was convinced that he just didn't exist. Everything was too white hot and searing to comprehend. This pain… This pain was unimaginable.

It was… his fault.

It was _all_ his fault.

 _Sweat prickled under his arms. The sounds of his footfalls were too loud in his ears from his boots clomping down on the tile of the corridor opening into the main foyer. Six charges… Six fucking charges. That's all it would take to wipe everything, and they were on a timer to keep him from having to stick around._

 _His stomach twisted and his skin itched._

 _He didn't want to be around when they started counting bodies._

 _It wasn't that he wasn't a war-hardened man, but these people were once his friends, and he didn't want to have to deal with their blood on his hands so directly._

 _He wanted to look forward and never look back again._

 _This was his final test to get into Talon._

 _No, his final test to Talon stalked toward him with equally thunderous feet and a red face to match a god of fire. He had to fight the weaker part of him that wanted to take that man into his arms and escape. Angela had left him. Angela had fucking_ _ **left**_ _him and abandoned him and looked at him like he was going to hurt her. And sometimes, he wanted to._

 _He didn't have time, and he froze in his tracks._

" _ **GABE**_ _."_

 _A fearful little sound escaped his mouth. He didn't want to do this. He couldn't speak._

" _What the hell was that in there?" Jack snapped, shoving his chest with the heels of both hands. That… That made him… Angry… The two of them nearly stood at the same height, but there was still a bit of an advantage on Gabe's part, and Gabe could easily just fucking deck the smaller man. He wouldn't be able to do anything about it. He'd fall to the ground and get caught in the blast. He wouldn't even have to be conscious..._

 _He came back to his senses for a moment and shoved back harder than Jack had shoved him. Much. Harder. "You're their pretty poster boy. How else am I going to react when there's so much else that could be happening other than bullshit meetings? Bullshit bureaucracy? We have_ _ **power**_ _, Jack. We have power and no one's doing anything about that. We're just letting it go to waste."_

" _Why have you_ _ **done**_ _this to us, Gabe? Overwatch was just… What? What was it to you, Gabriel?"_

" _A stepping stone," he said, reciting the rhetoric that he'd been telling himself and even_ _ **believed**_ _until the moment he had to stick those goddamn charges._

 _The charges. They didn't have much time left._

" _Then, go, Gabriel." But Jack's voice broke, and something cracked inside Gabriel Reyes. "I thought I knew you. I thought I_ _ **knew**_ _you, Gabriel." His voice was shaking. There were tears in his baby blue eyes._

 _His words felt so, so hollow on his numb lips. "If you wanted to know me, you would. You knew that I wasn't going to stay. You knew that there was corruption."_

" _There's corruption everywhere, Gabriel! That's what we're here for! We're here to stop that as much as we can!"_

" _No," he whispered, shaking his head. The hollowness in his chest - his heart - started changing into… fire. Changing into passion. The kind of passion that he felt when he would tell Angela these things. The kind of passion that he felt when Talon ensured him that they would cleanse this godforsaken world of its hellish obsession with the more-than-human. The less-than-human. "No," he said again, more firmly, more gruffly._

 _The floor shook beneath their feet. The air shifted. The temperature changed. Only if it was slight._

" _ **No**_ _."_

 _Jack's head whipped around toward the source of the low rumble, his watery blue eyes turning absolutely fearful - terrified. "No…"_

 _That's when the first of the most cruel smiles tainted his lips. He could still almost feel it now. Cold. Frigid cold against the tingling numbness and beginning fires within him. A smile that was more of a predator's promise to kill than a smile. Baring teeth. Baring fangs that would sink into Jack Morrison's neck and rip out his arteries._

" _Yes, Jack."_

 _Jack shook his head over and over, backing up closer and closer toward the glass barrier and railing that separated the second floor's sheer drop into the large entry hall and it's meandering pathways._

" _You're going to kill us all," he said with a tremble in his voice that sent down his spine the chills and shivers of quiet pleasure tickling the back of his mind. No, Gabriel. No… You're…" As if realizing the full plan at this point in the second thunderous boom - the second shudder that sent plaster falling from the ceiling like snowflakes - the second shudder that cracked the massive crystalline foyer's windows like spiderwebs and frost - that rumbled through the whole building, Jack upheld a shaking hand but managed to hold firmly his voice. "Stay the_ _ **fuck**_ _away from her, and never let me see your goddamn face again, Gabriel. Get out of here. Get out of here before I kill you where you stand."_

 _That stung._

 _The chill in the lump in his chest ached in a dull, frostbite kind of ache. The words were out of his mouth before they could be stopped as he remembered being so closely tangled with Jack - so warm with him… So… "I thought you loved me, Jack."_

 _The hot, bitter, venomous words of a lover completely jilted._

 _The Jack in his memory shook his head, and this time Gabriel could remember the tears that fell. "I thought you loved_ _ **her**_ _."_

 _That was it._

 _If he couldn't admit that he used to have feelings - still maybe harbored some of those feelings… He would… There was no hope for him._

 _Desperation started to creep up on Gabriel's tense shoulders, sending them toward his ears and hunching himself over in the tremors which cracked the floor. He threw away his emotions, as if he were on a mission that would have otherwise nearly killed him to execute. He just… turned it all off. A switch flipped that would never turn back on willingly. Sometimes it would spring back to life when he was vulnerable and flood him with feelings of the damned but… No longer was this man Gabriel Reyes. Not completely, anymore._

 _He'd shut that part of himself into a tiny corner in the span of an instant._

 _Before Gabriel could control himself, he took three strides forward to meet Jack Morrison, grabbed the front of his shitty leather jacket that smelled like pre-sex daydreams, and nearly kissed him. Instead, he just gave Jack a soft warning, "If one of us has to make it out alive, it won't be a washed up commander. I've got bigger things, Jack."_

 _Was it away from the blast? Yes. Would he have to explain himself to Talon's superior officers? Yes. Did it matter? No._

But he stood around too long.

He remembered that much.

He stood around gloating too long.

Self-satisfied gloating.

That's what trapped him under rubble. That's what trapped him under rock and steel and flame. That's what sent medic teams searching, and that's what sent Angela searching for him after finding Jack. Jack saved his life for Talon to use. Angela… Angela should have let him die.

He begged her to kill him.

Only now could he remember that detail.

When she denied him that, he'd vowed to kill her. He'd vowed his soul on a wager that he'd be the only one to end her life. That she was his and his to own and kill.

And in thanks for rescue, he'd thrown her so far - so hard - that he'd broken her spine.

He knew that she told everyone it was so she could do better surgeries, but he _knew_. He and Jack and possibly Ana knew the truth that this doctor would probably never admit that her former lover had done this to her in a fit of rage. In a fit of sheer hatred for the way she looked at him. For the way he knew she knew him.

He took a step forward out of the mist of himself, coalescing in utter anguish of burning bones and a hellfire lake in his mind. Hellfire. Lakes. Facedown, confused and battered and cast out. Chained with his head below the searing waters that filled every part of his body - his lungs - and ate away at his insides.

But no, he was in hell. His old barracks, neatly furnished and safe from the explosion.

His lungs burned. Oh, _god_ , his lungs burned.

" _Jack?"_

 _Sleepy blue eyes looked up at his own, and he felt his heart speed up as Jack moved his hands over his abdomen, and Gabriel put his book down on the night stand, right beside Jack's mouth guard. He would grind his teeth at night when the nightmares were bad._

 _Jack grunted in acknowledgement, pulling Gabriel from his thoughts._

" _If I…" He swallowed, unsure how to bring it up but too disturbed by classical literature not to say something. "If I go… bad. Somehow."_

 _He paused again and looked down at the man who'd been dozing peacefully on his chest. Jack's brows knitted so close together, you could have called them the beginnings of a scarf._

 _Gabriel took another breath, knowing that he couldn't hide the shaking and his quick heartbeat from Jack's ear, which was pressed against his naked body._

" _If I go bad somehow because of the program… You have to take me out."_

 _Jack shook his head. "That won't happen."_

" _No, babe, please, just… listen."_

 _Jack sat all the way up, pulling the covers off the two of them by accident, which made Gabe want to pull them back up for protection from the vulnerability he felt from rolling over and exposing his fears._

" _Gabe… Is…" Jack swallowed loud enough for Gabe to hear, but then again, with the program - the supersoldiering - he could hear a lot of things. A lot_ _ **more**_ _things, anyway. "Is there something wrong that you aren't telling us?"_

 _Gabe shook his head once. "I'm… I'm just afraid that…"_

 _Jack cut him off with a kiss, which was long and slow but not nearly as passionate and riled up as two hours before. "Gabe… If it gets to that point, I'll find a way to stop it."_

His lungs.

A tearing, rattling, wheezing sound came from somewhere.

Oh, his lungs… Burning, burning, _burning_.

He was laughing.

And plunged into another memory.

" _Ah, she looks like her daddy, yes she does." He squeezed the delicate feet of a newborn baby between his large fingers gently and cooed at her while Ana smiled tiredly._

" _You don't even know who her daddy is, Gabe."_

 _He leaned down to the much smaller woman and kissed her cheek. "You're gonna have to stop calling me that now, I guess, since it's weird and all."_

 _Ana feigned disgust. "You know that I only call Jack that."_

 _A bloom of embarrassment colored his cheeks as unexpected laughter made him guffaw in the ugliest way possible, but that made the baby laugh. The sweet, sweet baby that Ana held in her arms to tightly. So fiercely. So… protectively…_

 _And he looked into those eyes._

" _Eyes just like her mama, though."_

 _And the memory shifted._

 _Instead of interacting with the beautiful child he'd come to call his own, he was watching her grow up, up, and away from Overwatch._

 _Watching the girlish teen laughing and gouging playful insults at a modern day cowboy without her mother's knowing what her tongue could be._

 _Watching a teen blooming into womanhood fall head over heels for a lovely doctor that didn't share her intense interest._

 _Watching that young woman be sent away with tears in her eyes to go live with her father to pursue another life. A better life. A life away from her mother and her father figures and her family and her_ _ **home**_ _._

 _Finally, watching that beautiful woman in her thirties have the sharpest eyes - eyes like her mother - flitting around in utter fear. Watching her shoulders hunch protectively around a small blonde doctor. Watching her tears fall when no one was looking._

 _Watching himself offer to kill her to her own mother._

 _Watching himself offer to kill his own daughter._

 _And for what?_

 _To win._

 _To win what?_

 _What was worth winning so much that he would kill his own_ _ **child**_ _even if she was not of his blood?_

The question stung him so deeply that he felt himself coming undone again, but he hoped that this time, he wouldn't come back. Agony had nothing on this… feeling. This sensation that ran so deeply through his body and mind and whatever was left of his pathetic blackened soul.

Sensation was such a nice word. _Agony_ was such a nice word.

Lucidity.

A conference room.

His body moved on its own.

The same _fucking_ conference room where he'd made his final decision.

No, where he was _making_ his final decision.

Breaking the walls.

Breaking the windows.

The portraits.

The portraits of him. _Him_. Gabriel Reyes.

The portraits of him and Jack and Ana and Fareeha and Jesse and so so many other Overwatch agents that he'd hunted down and murdered to cleanse the world of their horrible, horrible grip.

No, no…

He was confused.

He was burning.

Aching.

Dissolving.

Whiting out.

Blacking out.

Numb.

Enflamed.

Peeling away.

What had he become…

 _The darkness._

 _You can still change this, Gabriel_. Whose voice was that?

 _No, I've already done enough._

 _You've done enough. Stop this_. He knew her. Someone.

 _Let me die._

 _That would be best_ , another voice said. A voice in a different accent. A cold thing that was… French? He didn't remember her being so cold…

 _I'm a monster._

 _A demon_ , corrected the second voice.

 _You can fix this_ , _Gabe. It isn't too late_ , a third voice sighed. She was so tired…

 _Why don't I…_

But his doom reserved him more to wrath for now the thought both of lost happiness and lasting pain tormented him, and he looked around with baleful eyes that witnessed the true affliction and dismay of Overwatch, and it mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate.

A solidity.

Something to finally hold onto.

 _Gabe, don't do this_ , whispered another voice.

The voice of his adopted child.

 _I've already failed you,_ he said to his mind's Fareeha _._ He knew she would protest, but he couldn't bring himself to care.

And as he looked around the decimated area of the conference room that had once been where all their meetings and delegations took place, he realized that he couldn't do this alone.

In that moment, something inside him - a fragile thing he didn't know was still there - cracked.

And shattered.

And he remembered, once that last vestige of humanity was broken - once that last bit of anything good within him dissipated - once his transformation was finally complete after all these years, that he had one thing left up his sleeve that would destroy them all.

The will of others mattered not any longer.

He had yet to detonate his Widowmaker.

And she would lead him to triumph.


	60. Roads Untraveled

Milk swirled in a lazy, cloudy spiral in a lake of brown-black liquid caffeine. The ripples on the surface matched the barely perceptible footfalls of someone in the next room. Warmth simply radiated off of the ceramic mug in a way that calmed her, even though the mornings were starting to get warmer now that it was dead in the middle of summer.

Angela heard those footfalls travel from the living room into the hall and then into the kitchen, but she couldn't seem to tear her eyes away from the milk suspended in coffee like a swirl of paint in resin layers. The cream bloomed into a milky brown as it slowly hit the bottom of the cup and exploded upward in a cloud. Everything seemed to move so slowly nowadays.

She didn't look up when Jesse came into the room.

"Did ya sleep, or have you been looking at that same coffee mug since the last time I saw you?"

Angela grunted.

She hadn't slept again, but she'd moved since the night before. She'd been up all night again looking at everything one more time, feeling like she'd missed something. She had to miss something. Things didn't just… work. Not for her. Not ever.

"Jack said that some things finally shook out, but he didn't say what."

Angela grunted again and lifted her too-heavy hand with its too-heavy spoon and stirred her milk in properly while trying to avoid clanging around the metal against the ceramic. Her head was starting to hurt too much for anything loud like that.

Part of her felt like she was moving through molasses. Another part of her felt like her brain was going too fast. Everything seemed to be happening so much, but her body felt restricted.

"Ana is pretty quiet, but that's not too surprisin', I guess."

Angela couldn't even bring herself to grunt.

As if just now noticing that something was very wrong, Jesse's voice dropped to the quiet way he did when he was concerned. "Ang, you… you alright?"

She twitched her head in a shake.

When she heard him sigh, her head felt pulled free from the binds of whatever exhaustion clamped her into a fugue state, and she looked up, mouth slightly open. Her eyes wouldn't focus on him, though, and he just seemed surrounded by a soft filter.

"Jesse, what if my plan doesn't work?" her own voice sounded so broken to her own ears.

She'd been working nonstop on this project, but if it failed in the field, then it wouldn't matter. The only way to know for sure would be to test it, but there was no coming back from it if it didn't work the first time. She'd done everything she could to make it work, and it only had a .0000001% chance of not working as long as it was within a ten second span of time. After ten seconds, the probability of it crapping out on her was 100%.

He saddled up next to her and nudged her arm with his. "If it doesn't work, Ang, it isn't your fault. We don't have time to test it or perfect it or some shit. We just gotta… pull the trigger and hope it works if one of us cheeses it."

She shrugged and felt the heaviness returning in her stiff neck. She looked back down at her coffee without drinking it. "I backed out of the weapon business once Amélie felt up to taking a crack at it. Between her and Ana and Mei and Jack, they seem to have worked it out entirely."

Jesse sighed. "Angela, how long have you been up?"

She cut her eyes over at him.

His smile was nice enough to her, reminding her of the times that they'd practically grown up together. She remembered the way she'd tried to hit on him when he just put his hands up with a "Woah, there" and said, albeit sweatily, "I'm…. A gay cowboy….."

That had probably been one of the funniest moments of her life, all things considered.

She'd spent so much time angry at him. So had Fareeha.

She'd been angry at Genji.

She'd been angry at Reinhardt.

She'd been angry at Jack.

She'd been angry at Ana.

She'd been angry at Amélie.

She'd been angry at Lena.

She'd been angry at Torb for obvious reasons and still was.

She'd been angry at Zarya and Mei for just being happy despite the circumstances.

She'd been angry at Zenyatta for being… for just being okay with himself.

She'd been angry at Winston (for recalling them, but not much else).

She'd been angry at all of them.

She'd spent so much of the last five or six years so pissed that she hadn't been able to get outside of her own head much, if at all. Fareeha was the only one able to crack into her true feelings and who she still was apart from her anger.

And now that she wasn't mad…

She could set aside all of her grudges, even the one she had against Gabriel Reyes himself.

She could set aside all of these issues. She could put them off and focus on what actually needed her attention.

She called it The Resurrection Project.

* * *

Angela leaned over, her neck aching from being in one spot for too long, and touched her toes to change things up a bit.

"Nice view," quipped Fareeha, who'd simply emerged from the shadowed doorway of Winston's hidey hole.

Angela snapped up, blushing. "I thought you were going to help Hana set up for tomorrow's game."

Fareeha shrugged. "There's only so much I can do when Winston insists on pulling the conference table down by himself."

Angela rubbed at her neck and shoulders and leaned against the table where her plans lay out in the open. She felt like a supermagnet was in her eyes and its mate was in the diagrams, notes, and screens littering the table.

There was an indefinite silence before Fareeha spoke again in a softer tone - the kind of tone she often had when Angela was too high on an anxious ride and needed to come down. The kind of tone she had when she was calling Angela home from a dark place. "My love, you've been up here all day and all night. It's time to come down and eat something… Get some rest…" Her concern turned into the faintest mischief in a wry smile. "Take your mind off things..."

Cotton and butterflies fluttered around inside Angela but were partially quelled by the enormous weight of what she intended to do.

"Fareeha…" She felt so tired. So… _so_ tired.

"Come on. We'll all sit down and have a good time, and we'll put the kids to bed, and we'll all just be happy for a while." Fareeha flashed a smile, but it looked strained to Angela. Like something underneath the surface was pushing her toward this rather than her coming up with it. "That doesn't sound so bad, right?"

Those weren't her words, for sure. Those were Jack's, but Angela couldn't know for sure.

Knowing that they'd all been colluding together on how to lure her out of her lair made her a bit uncomfortable, but she knew that the longer she stayed locked into this mindset of having to get through and having to finish would only make the project less than perfect. Time away from it all was what she needed, but she wasn't at all happy about it.

Messing with Fareeha a little bit wouldn't be too much away from her work, though. She could just nettle the information out of the lovely lady and then getting back to the activity at hand would be sufficient. Besides, she was feeling less and less interested in doing anything the longer she talked to Fareeha. Maybe she was just that tired. Maybe… Maybe she could mess with her a little bit and then just go… nap?

With that mental nod to herself, Angela squinted at Fareeha for a second before pushing herself off the desk and getting a little closer. The distance between them wasn't much, but it was enough to make Fareeha start getting sweaty. Angela knew exactly what to do to get information out of her girlfriend. Her fiance. All it would take was some eyelash batting and a little bit of breath on her neck to get her to talk, but then again, it would get Angela talking too. And then start saying some really nasty stuff.

Fareeha leaned against the wall near the doorway and blushed furiously as Angela leaned up against her, looking up at her, and Angela felt an overwhelming sense of power at being able to get the best of her in just a few seconds.

She spoke softly so her voice wouldn't carry down the stairs. "Fareeha… Who told you to come get me?"

She could feel Fareeha's heart speed up through her thin little Overwatch tanktop, and Angela traced her fingers around the hem of the top, just barely ghosting over Fareeha's soft skin.

Fareeha made a tiny strangled noise when she opened her mouth, and her cheeks turned even darker, much to Angela's amusement and arousal.

"Was it Jack?"

Fareeha nodded once. "You've… just… been up here so long by yourself. And. Everyone's…" She took a shaky breath, but the tremble was not out of distress. Angela couldn't help but smile. "Everyone's just worried. Even Athena."

Angela backed up a little from her heavy-breathing girlfriend and shrugged, feeling the last bit of her tenuous grasp on sheer fixation about her project dissolve. The magnets in her eyes seemed to vanish, for the time being, with the groan of her stomach for food and the aching between her legs for Fareeha.

The two of them descended the stairs in a clambering roll, pulling one another along by interlaced fingers and a growing excitement. They crept through the living room and up the stairs to their room together, busting the door wide open with their bodies tangled in a heated embrace. Angela kicked the door shut behind her while Fareeha reached around to lock it quickly but kept fumbling for the way Angela pulled on her much taller girlfriend to get closer.

The fluffy rug beneath their feet and the warm coziness of the room made everything… softer for Angela. Everything had been so harsh lately - ever since Amélie's surgery, she'd been pushing herself so hard, so hard that it was nearly exactly like when she'd been putting Zenyatta back together bit by bit. This was a matter of life and death too. A matter of death to life, actually.

Angela's mind fuzzed out a little when Fareeha slid her hands up under her shirt and kissed her roughly against the door. Angela's spine implant rocked unsteadily on the wooden slat, and Fareeha grunted and pulled back one of her hands, shaking out a finger that had apparently gotten trapped between the implant and the door.

"Sorry," Angela mumbled, leaning forward for another kiss.

"It's okay. I mean… It only feels like you tried to pop my finger off."

Angela stuck her tongue out only to meet Fareeha's wicked smile. In a flash, Fareeha picked Angela up and threw her over her shoulder in a fireman's carry much to Angela's delight and dismay. She squealed a little in her laughter as Fareeha tossed her on the small bed and jumped on top of her to cover her in soft, fervent kisses, which only made Angela laugh more, so much so that her sides ached and her stomach felt on the verge of sickness.

"Babe! Babe, I'm gonna be sick!" Angela wheezed through her much-needed laughter.

Fareeha slowed down the paces of her kisses to little intermittent things that would adorn Angela's forehead, cheeks, nose, and lips. Fareeha was grinning wide - beaming, even. And her smile made Angela weak all over and warm from within.

"I love you, Fareeha," Angela said, not really thinking too hard about anything in particular other than how much she just wanted to kiss her again.

Fareeha looked down from her propped position, holding her head up my propping herself on her elbow and looking down at Angela who lay flat on her back. "I love _you_ , Angela."

"Kiss me again…" Angela asked, feeling a little desperate to be held and loved and made blissful.

Fareeha smiled and then tapped her chin with her free hand while making a Serious Face. "Hmm… Let me think about it."

"Baaabee," Angela giggled.

"HMMM," Fareeha hummed louder, not able to keep the smile off her face despite trying.

"If you don't willingly give me kisses, I'm going to have to come get them myself, I suppose," said Angela pushing herself up a bit to meet Fareeha halfway.

And Fareeha swooped down with a tender thing of a kiss that completely immersed Angela entirely for a moment and drowned out every other thought. The warmness of Fareeha's lips. The gentleness of her touch with her plated fingers. The emphasis she put on drawing Angela close to her without pushing Angela too hard or too fast. The way she let Angela set the tone and the pace.

Angela pulled Fareeha closer and tossed one of her legs around Fareeha's hips to _really_ pull her closer, and Fareeha scooted forward without hesitation. The gentle curve of Fareeha's cheeks fit so nicely in Angela's palms, and one of Angela's hands started stroking Fareeha's hair, twisting in the silkiness and playing with the little beads that framed her face. Fareeha, in turn, carefully pulled the hairband out of Angela's ponytail and freed her hair to tumble frizzly down her back.

When the kiss came to a natural close, Angela closed her eyes and sighed. "Fareeha?"

Fareeha responded by lightly pressing her palm against Angela's face and rubbing her thumb over her cheek.

She blew out another breath. "I'm scared of so much…"

"Angela?" Angela opened her eyes and met Fareeha's caramel gaze for a time before Fareeha continued. "I'm scared too."

Angela snorted, feeling the warm glow of the moment starting to fade. "What are we gonna do with ourselves?"

Fareeha nodded, frowning with a raised eyebrow. "Fair enough. But consider this."

Angela mirrored Fareeha's eyebrow raise.

"We make sweet, sweet love and then go get something to eat from downstairs, or I can call up Jesse and tell him to bring us Chinese takeout and we won't have to get out of bed and can just keep doing what we're doing until you _want_ to get out of bed."

Angela smiled, feeling those butterflies return in full force, lighting her on fire from the inside. "I'd like that."

* * *

Angela lay with her head on Fareeha's chest, listening to the way her heart beat so strongly and steadily after rigorous activity. Angela's stomach rumbled again. and Fareeha giggled beneath her. Angela could feel the way Fareeha's tight, lovely muscles tensed with every laugh.

"Come on. Let's go get you something to eat, maybe? Or do you want to phone Jesse?"

Angela rolled her eyes and rolled on top of Fareeha, resting her chin on Fareeha's sternum. "I think I need to get up and move around or else I might fall asleep right here."

Fareeha hummed in assent. "It _is_ nice just to lay up here like we don't have any problems."

Angela rolled her eyes and smacked her hand down on Fareeha's right breast.

She raised one stark eyebrow. "That's my boob, Angela."

"I'm grabbing your heart, babe."

"That's my right boob though," but Fareeha was already smiling at a joke she'd nearly forgotten after all these years.

Now didn't seem quite like the time to joke, all things considered, but laying there together in the quiet calm and warm afterglow… Angela couldn't help but smile a little at her beautiful girlfriend and love of her life.

" _Babe_."

* * *

The two of them managed to shuffle into some clothes with only a _minor_ distraction here and there. Angela was in her clothes first and watched Fareeha get dressed in the lazy way she always did. She didn't mean to make it sensual, but there was something, to Angela, about the casual carelessness with which she simply shimmied into her pants and pulled her shirts over her head that drove Angela up the wall wanting to pull those lazily donned clothes right on off.

Fareeha led the way downstairs to the kitchen, and Angela frowned at how empty the house seemed. There was none of the usual racket from twenty-or-so people living in a relatively small house, which led Angela to think about how grateful she was that they were all pretty much loners in one way or another, loving to be together but not having to constantly interact. That everyone sequestered themselves to their rooms except for morning rovings and evening meals with the exception of game nights and plans within certain circles.

"Where is everyone?"

Fareeha shrugged. "I think the kids went off to the mall or something."

Angela raised an eyebrow and smacked Fareeha square on the ass as she passed her to go into the kitchen. "The kids?"

Fareeha stuck her tongue out. "Yeah. The kids. You know. Jack, Jesse, mom, and Rein."

Angela popped open the fridge, appreciating the little hiss it always did. A small happiness, but a happiness that she thought she might miss if they ever had to replace the damn thing. She rummaged around in the ever-empty fridge. " _Those_ kids."

Neither of them spoke while they made coffee and sandwiches for each other, but it wasn't uncomfortable. Just being near Fareeha was enough to calm Angela's nerves and set her racing mind at ease.

When they sat down together, stirring in the sugar for their coffees, Fareeha broke the comfortable silence with a painful question.

"Will it be ready?"

Angela nodded, mouth full of crunchy lettuce, but her stomach dropped with the weight of voiceless anxiety.

"Will what be ready?" asked the quiet, accented voice of the woman in the doorway.

Angela snapped into a rigid posture that she wasn't quite sure how she'd managed to relax enough to lose.

Fareeha rolled her head over to the side in a genial way that Angela questioned, in part, considering how Amélie had treated her.

"Angela is working on a way to keep everyone alive just in case."

Amélie frowned. "I may have overheard a conversation or two between the doctor and Mei, yes. But I don't think I'm clear on exactly what's been happening. I would like to know."

She sat, uninvited.

Fareeha leaned over and planted her warm, soft lips of Angela's temple. "I'll let you two talk it over."

She winked and slipped away with her coffee without another word.

Angela's shoulders began to climb the longer Amélie stared at her, completely unblinking. There were moments where Angela could see the blue through Amélie's carmel colored skin - could see the phantom spiderwebs made in ink that stained her skin no longer. The two of them sat for a time in complete stony silence.

"Angela…" Amélie started, avoiding Angela's eyes, which threw her off a bit. She wasn't used to seeing Amélie express any kind of weakness, but then again, she could remember a time where Amélie hadn't been as confident. A time where Amélie had just up and moved away from everything she knew and loved so that she could be with Gérard.

"What is it, Amélie? Are you feeling unwell?" There was an edge in her voice - a knife buried under the thin kindness - that she automatically regretted when she spoke.

"No, Angela."

Angela blinked. Amélie almost never called her by name.

Amélie looked down at her long fingered hands, folded neatly on the countertop. Her posture was a rigid as Angela's, but instead of stooping down, hunkering as if ready for a blow, she sat with her head high though her eyes were down.

"I am afraid to face him."

Angela blinked. "Him?"

Amélie's eyes didn't slide over in irritation like Angela thought they might, and surprisingly, her words didn't turn cold either. "I'm…" She took a breath, and Angela noticed the way her skin went pale. "I'm afraid of facing Reyes."

Angela looked down at her mug. "Does it help for me to say that I am too?"

Amélie snorted softly, but not in derision. "Yes, I suppose so."

Silence fell between them again like a brick wall protecting and sealing off two sides of a potential explosion. Angela broke it. "Would you like some coffee?"

Amélie blinked. "Should I have some?" Her cheeks flushed darker. "I mean… I'm still not really sure what my system can handle after I was reduced to nutrient gruel for a few weeks, not to mention that the last few years at Talon had reduced my palate to that of a toddler."

The sourness of unease seeped into Angela's stomach like milk slowly going bad then going bad all at once. Any casual mention of Talon was so outlandish to Angela that she wasn't sure what to do with any of it except feel like she'd swallowed a week-old wet rag and cotton balls with the seeds still in the middle.

"I'm sorry we didn't rescue you sooner, Amélie…" Angela finally whispered, halfway into her half-raised coffee mug.

Amélie shrugged with one shoulder. She was moving a lot more comfortably now, as Angela expected after such a recovery time. In the next month or so, she'd feel completely back up to speed. Physically, at least. Mentally was another thing that neither of them could predict or anticipate. She wasn't showing wild mood swings - being so warm and then shutting off like a switch had been smashed all to bits rather than just flipped off. Chill. Cold. Void of feeling or empathy. Those times, Angela had seen, were reserved for when she was working. When she was deep in thought about killing again.

It'd been one reason that Angela backed out of working with the group that was focused on taking down Reyes. Amélie scared her those times. Bad.

"I don't think about that anymore, Angela."

Angela looked up from her coffee to watch Amélie ruffle her freshly cut hair, the little shock of longer hair in the front was curling slightly. Her hair was starting to grow back thicker now that her body could absorb nutrients again. The scar on the back of her head was healing nicely, but it would always be a scar from what Talon had done. She'd always be scarred.

Angela was too tired to feel frustration, though. "How can you forget something like that?"

Amélie's eyes searched Angela, as if looking for some cruel joke hidden in her words. "I do not forget. I simply do not think about it." She waved a hand, apparently satisfied with what she found within Angela. "Besides, it does not do me much good to dwell on those things. On that _time_." She shook her head, still slowly. "It was such a dark time, but it's over now. Now, I can grieve my dead husband and grieve for the time I've lost and grieve for the small parts of me that died under Reyes's hands."

Angela swallowed and pushed herself out of her chair, feeling Amélie's words lapping against her ear like the waves rolling in and eroding the beach one surging word at a time. She busied herself with making Amélie a cup of coffee instead.

"Cream and plenty of sugar, please," Amélie requested.

"Your usual."

Amélie paused, then smiled with a nod. "Yes, I suppose it is."

Angela felt… _too_ watched while she made Amélie her cup, but she wasn't about to say anything about the quality of Amélie's scrutinous gaze.

"We're… all but done with the weapon," Amélie commented as Angela set the mug in front of her. "Just a few last tweaks to the rifle itself."

Angela couldn't find something else to do to avoid this conversation, so instead, she sat across from Amélie, watching her as intently as she was watching Angela. "What kind of final tweaks?"

Amélie rolled a shoulder. "Paint."

Angela snorted. "Okay, yeah, we have to roll out in style, I suppose."

Amélie's neutral face cracked into a smile. "We _are_ Overwatch, aren't we?"

 _We._

"Yeah," Angela said, smiling back. "We are."

Amélie handed Angela the rest of her mug and propped her head in her hands. "How's your project going?"

Angela made a see-saw motion with one hand. "Theoretically, it's perfect, but I won't know if it works until we can use it on a subject, and I doubt anyone is willing to die to prove it works. Besides, Mei didn't harvest enough of Reyes's genetic material for me to have spares. It took everything she got for me to distill it down into what I have now."

Amélie made a rolling 'go on' motion. "Which is…?"

Angela held up her thumb and index finger a few millimeters apart. "A little bead that linked to a monitor through some of Sombra's nonsense that has Reyes's material reconfigured into a usable, stable form that I can detonate through voice activation by speaking into my caduceus."

Amélie raised a delicate, silky black eyebrow. "Isn't that a little… What would Hana say… Extra?"

Angela tilted her head down and looked up at Amélie as if she were looking over her readers. "Have you met me before, Amélie? I am the _definition_ of 'extra.'"

Amélie nodded her head side to side in assent with a little wince out of habit more than out of pain. At least, that was Angela's perception. The back of her head very well may have still twinged a bit when she moved it outside of a small range. _Within the month, that should be gone, though._

"You talked around it a bit, but… what did you specifically decide about the…" Angela trailed off, her tongue unwilling to say the words.

"The weapon?" Amélie asked cooly, the tint of Widowmaker returning to her voice in a frosty filter.

"Yes," Angela sighed.

"It's… Hmm…" Amélie put a thoughtful finger to her dark lips as she thought. "The bullet itself is more of a… harm to him in a double dose. Right now, the clip has ten shots, but really, that only makes it five."

Angela felt her eyebrows wrinkling, trying to do the basic math of how ten became five.

"The first bullet combines a few different technologies. A bit of electricity from Winston's Tesla cannon, a bit of freezing from Mei's endothermic blaster, some of Aleksandra's knowledge in particle physics and gravity surges… A biomechanical component from…" Amélie's face twisted like she got a lemon candy in her mouth. " _Sombra_. Some of… Ana's… whatever." She sighed. "The second bullet is the one that kills. The first stabilizes. The second one is for the kill." She paused. "It's… going to be tricky to pull off. If I miss the first, I have to just try to slap off his armor with the second. We only have a few tries, but we won't have the element of surprise if we don't succeed the first time."

Amélie was obviously growing increasingly uncomfortable talking about all of this.

"I still need to thank Ana."

"Not Sombra?" Angela asked with a small smile.

Amélie's voice turned hard but flippant. "The thanks I give her is not killing her on the spot."

"Woah, now. I'm not about to let that happen," Angela asserted, feeling a little stress climb up on her back like the sonofabitch monkey that it was.

Amélie inclined her head deeply. "I respect your carpet and walls, but that may not be the case for the Swiss Headquarters."

Angela frowned. "I don't approve."

Amélie was the one who smiled widely. "That's the doctor that I remember."

The anxiety beating on her back and pulling up her shoulder blades grew into a heaviness in her stomach, much like two rowdy children pulling her in different directions. "I have a lot to apologize to you for, Amélie."

"That, you do, Angela," she said, but she was not angry. "I have plenty to apologize for, too."

Angela felt the butterflies in her stomach start up again, thinking about how little time they all had left before the final showdown. "Amélie?"

"Yes, Angela?"

"Do you want to go do something together? Just the two of us?"

Amélie blinked and set down her mug. "Do… you feel the need to make amends through forced interaction or is this genuine?"

Angela frowned, feeling irritation spawn like a deadly plant. "Genuine."

Amélie smiled in a way that Angela hadn't seen in years and years. "In that case, Angela Ziegler. Let's apologize to each other over dinner tomorrow night… As long as I can have a glass of wine. I miss that."

Angela, momentarily frozen, shook her head. "I, uh, I don't think…." She stopped short. "You know what? Fuck it. Let's go get dinner and be sadsacks together. It's on me. Have all the wine you want."


	61. Last Forever

"Holy fucking _shit_. You're shitting me. You're absolutely goddamn shitting me. That's your fourth nat twenty in a row, Fareeha." Hana dragged her hands down her face and threw up her hands. "I had a plan, but Fareeha… Okay… Fareeha… Can you… Can you just describe how this looks for all of us?"

Fareeha snorted, trying to old down the laughter that was _obviously_ bubbling up from inside. Her fourth roll was as stellar as her first tonight, and she was _living_ from what Lena could tell. Lena interlaced her fingers with Amélie's and watched smugly as Fareeha single-handedly destroyed Hana Song's story arc.

Everyone was grinning besides Hana, who looked mildly taken aback by her undoing. "Okay. Urzul… Okay." Fareeha's giggles made a ripple throughout the rest of the family gathered around the conference table. "Okay, I, Urzul the Hammer of Justice, take off toward the thing-"

"Gregory," Hana inserted, looking a bit smug and feline like she usually did when she was amused with her campaigners.

"Yes, Gregory. And I swing off of some of the debris, run along the wall, and launch myself into the air to stab him in the eye with one of my daggers. I use the other to hold steady in his forehead, and I climb up on his head and stab him in his other eye."

"Woah, wait, you need to do another attack roll!" interjected Jack. "You can't just go on all willy nilly like that!"

Hana thought for a minute. "No, I'm too invested now. Four twenties…" She started giggling like a smug asshole. "Four-twenty."

In unison, Lena, Jack, Ana, Reinhardt, Genji, Winston, and even Zenyatta all shouted, "BLAZE IT."

Another round of roaring laughter shook the downstairs, Zarya's being the loudest.

"This joke is so old!" She bellowed. "It doesn't even make sense!"

Ana leaned back in her chair. "Back in _our_ day, you couldn't get good weed even if you wanted it. We had a kid try to tell us oregano once, but Gabe was too fucking smart for that and told him if he didn't want to be the ground beef on top of a pizza, he'd scram."

As if they were talking about someone that _wasn't_ trying to kill them, they all laughed, though it was a little forced. Well, Amélie didn't laugh, but she usually didn't when _he_ was brought up.

Jack sighed. "You gotta take a good weed joke where you can find one now that you can get it safely for almost nothing. Takes all the fun out of a joke when it's legal."

Mei slapped her hand on the table. "Why don't we go just…?" She trailed off, realizing how much attention she'd called to herself. "Never mind."

"We are _not_ going to go get high, Mei," Angela asserted, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I swear to God, I feel like I'm all of your mothers."

Ana laughed particularly hard. "I guess that makes your relationship with my daughter kinda wild, eh?"

Angela's pale face flushed beet red, and Lena could practically feel the heat radiating off of Angela from across the table. "NOPE. I'm out. I can't make those kinds of jokes."

Fareeha, whose cheeks were also a little blushy, laughed. "Okay, can we get back to how sick this is gonna be? Because I've been _waiting_."

Hana picked up her bucket of mac n cheese and started shoveling in massive spoonfuls. "Yeah, go ahead, if everyone's done being a funny guy."

"I stab Ggggregory?"

"Gregory."

"Gregory in the eye and use my other dagger to start scaling his head, and then I shove _both_ my daggers into the back of his neck and straddle it so I can steer him."

Everyone fell silent.

"You're…" Hana swallowed her half-masticated mac. "You're gonna. Wait. Okay, I don't know how behir based combat works but uh… I? I guess we'll see how this goes?" She stopped for a second, her eyes blank like an existential crisis descended upon her. "Let's break for now. I'm gonna put my mac in the fridge and see how in the _hell_ I'm gonna deal with this."

Amélie perked up. "Are we breaking for the night?"

Hana paused, bucket of cheesy goodness in the crook of her arm. "You know what? Yeah. We've been playing for what…? Five hours?"

Everyone nodded with a "more or less" kind of gesture.

"Yeah, let's break. I need to figure out what in the hell I'm gonna do."

With that, everyone split off into their own little groups and trickled back upstairs in pairs or small groups. Staying behind, though, were Genji, Zenyatta, Amélie, and Lena.

"Ah, friends," Zenyatta started, floating halfway between Amélie and Lena and the doorway to the stairwell.

"Sup, Zed?"

Amélie was quiet, though, and her fingers clamped down harder on Lena's. Something about Zenyatta made Amélie uncomfortable, but Lena wasn't quite sure what it was. Well, that wasn't necessarily true. She'd killed Zenyatta's brother and temporarily killed him too. That would make any reunion a little awkward and unpleasant.

Genji was the one to answer for him, though. "We were both wondering if… an evening over tea or coffee would be…"

"Genji. Stick. Arse. Get it out," Lena said with authority but kindness. "We're not gonna bite, love. Well, Amélie might." Amélie pushed on Lena's arm, and Lena spared a glance toward her girlfriend whose face was brilliantly flushed.

Genji was the next to blush. "Yeah, sorry."

Amélie waved it off. "Of course we'll accompany you." She shot a glance at Lena that was subtle enough that everyone else in the room would have missed it, but not Lena. "First, I think we should get ready, though. Lena's been in her sweatpants all day, and if it were up to her, she would go out in crocs, sweatpants, and a tanktop."

Lena's mouth fell open in sort-of-mock hurt. "I don't even _own_ crocs."

Amélie's dazzling smile lit up the whole room. "But if you did, am I wrong?"

Lena folded her arm, feeling herself pouting a little more than she meant to. "No…"

Amélie leaned over and kissed Lena's temple. "Come on, we'll meet up in twenty?"

Genji nodded, and Zenyatta moved gracefully out of the way with a nod at Lena and a finger-wag. "No funny business, you two."

Lena stuck her tongue out at him like the mature adult she was.

* * *

There wasn't nearly as much mischief as Lena thought they would get up to while "getting ready," which really consisted of Lena slipping out of her clothes and lounging on the bed while Amélie put on makeup in their room at the newly installed vanity.

It didn't take particularly long for Amélie to don her face, but Lena knew that she couldn't have managed the subtlety that Amélie showed in her contouring and eyeshadow. At best, Lena knew she could slap on some pretty mean eyeliner and mascara, but she didn't really prefer to do that most times. She did, for now, though.

A little dusting of fatigue made Lena's eyes slip closed, but her heart, along with her body, were nearly launched into space by Amélie flopping down particularly hard. A little yelp escaped Lena in the heat of the moment, but she snapped up with a petulant frown.

"Amélie!" A growing distress started up in her guts. "You could really hurt yourself!"

Amélie shrugged as best she could with her recently done-up face buried in the covers. She mumbled something that was too muffled by the duvet to hear very well.

"Okay, whatever you say." Lena said, still frowning.

Amélie's complete disregard for her own body concerned Lena in a way that she assumed everyone else worried about her after the incident where Widowmaker shot her.

She looked down at the ugly, spiderwebby scar on her leg with one pink-and-white imperfect, unraveling circle in the middle of those lightning bolts. It still hurt her to run sometimes, and her leg hurt when it rained. But she had Amélie in her arms, more or less, and that made her leg all worth the while.

Amélie turned her face to look at Lena. "I don't want to go out."

Lena felt her eyebrows get together and have a meeting on her forehead. "Then… why are we going?"

"Courtesy," Amélie said with her eyes closed, looking more and more like she was falling asleep by the second.

Lena rolled her eyes. "Love, everyone knows you're still healing and that your body needs rest."

"No," she said simply.

Lena reached out to the increasingly slowly breathing Amélie, and her fingers nearly recoiled from how warm her skin was. It wasn't feverish, but there was still some small part of her that couldn't believe that Amélie - not Widowmaker - was there with her. That the warmth coming off of Amélie's skin had to be a mirage of her mind rather than the actual Amélie. Amélie's golden eyes fluttered open at Lena's soft touch.

"Mmm?" Amélie hummed.

A little smile cracked through the fear that was settling on her face and dispelled it all.

Amélie was right there with her.

"Let's go put some caffeine in your body," Lena said, the smile on her face turning into a little sunbeam.

The smallest smile pulled Amélie's mouth up at the corners. "If you insist on going naked, I think we'll cause a stir."

Fire caught Lena's ears and cheeks. "UM."

Amélie's soft, sweet, just-woke-up smile shifted into something a little more mischievous. "Let's get you dressed first."

* * *

Amélie outfitted Lena in layers, as she often did, but it wasn't exactly cold enough to be layered the way Amélie wanted her to be. Instead, Amélie compromised with Lena on a jean jacket, olive shorts, and a t-shirt with the loud, bold letters spelling out, "I like my coffee like I like my men, nowhere near my genitals." Lena chose rather loudly colored socks to go with her high tops, but Amélie didn't complain too much other than to mutter, "Always a fashion disaster…" before smiling and kissing her softly and heading out to meet Genji and Zenyatta, who were, unsurprisingly, equally as fashionably dressed as Amélie.

"What is this? America's Next Top Model?" Lena snorted before punching Genji lightly on the arm.

Genji laughed, the top part of his face exposed to show how his eyes and nose scrunched up when he laughed. In fact, he was wearing less and less armor the more that he was around everyone. He pretty much looked like a completely normal, if not completely mangled, person. He was mostly relaxed, now, and only occasionally slipped back into talking like he had burrs or bees up his butt that he was trying to keep from escaping.

Zenyatta also laughed with a hand on his mechanical belly, though it was quieter than Genji's bellowing laugh. After he settled himself, he spoke with some chuckles still interrupting from time to time. "I hope you do not mind, friends, but I have also invited Aleksandra and Mei."

Amélie tilted her head to the side with a tiny frown. "Of course not. I would, at some point, Zenyatta, like to talk to you and Genji alone tonight, though."

Lena side-eyed her girlfriend as Zarya swooped in and picked Lena up in a sweeping hug that drove all the breath out of her lungs for a good few seconds. "Little pup, we have not been as friendly lately! We should go pump some iron, yes?" She laughed and set Lena back down, but Lena couldn't speak for wheezing.

Mei offered her hand for Lena to stabilize herself for a moment until the black spots disappeared from her vision, and when she looked up, Mei was wearing even _more_ fashionable garb than Zen and Genji combined. Zarya was also decked out.

"Okay. Okay, okay, okay. What the hell. Was I supposed to get all fancy? Because I don't fuckin' want to, mate."

Mei giggled, covering her mouth a little, and Zarya laughed loud enough to make the floorboards shake.

"You have never been one for fashion."

Lena rolled her eyes. "Damn straight."

"Never a day in my life, small one."

Lena went in for a fist bump before her heart stopped in fear that Aleksandra would break all her fingers, but instead, there was a small, lesbian fist bump of solidarity that didn't result in broken bones. _This_ fistbump was powerful but so fragile it can only be wielded by the delicate touch of a lesbian.

"Fine, I'll change," Lena huffed and disappeared before she came back in jeans, leather ankle boots, a black leather jacket, and a plain white t-shirt only a few minutes later.

With that, everyone started shuffling forward, but Mei stopped them all with one simple question. "Are we taking the car?"

Everyone shared a look.

"Who here is actually qualified to drive?" Lena asked. "I can't _drive_."

Zarya shook her head. "Me either."

Mei and Amélie rolled their eyes with a sigh at the same exact time.

"I'll drive," sighed Amélie, plucking the keys from the key bowl next to the door's endtable. "And Lena… you're a world renown pilot."

Lena poked her finger at Amélie with a squint. "Just because I can fly a plane doesn't mean I can drive a car. You should know this. You had to drive me to all of my appointments!"

Amélie smiled a feline smile at her girlfriend that made her guts twist and her thirst increase. "Come on, everyone, before it gets too late to _want_ coffee."

The ride over to the coffee shop was mostly peaceful, save for the loud, offkey singing from half of the group. The other half - Amélie, Genji, and Zarya - could have put angels to shame in their combined harmonies. Lena laughed and sang as offkey as it could be, but she often found herself distracted into dreamy grinning at the way Amélie's eyes sparkled in the low evening light and how the street lights would brighten her face, her sweet lips singing and her voice louder and stronger than she'd shown in so many years.

Lena couldn't stop grinning at Amélie. She couldn't stop grinning at Amélie's confidence. Her voice. Her laughter when she would mess up lyrics and the way she would mutter that it had been too long since she sang.

Lena smiled at her like a kid smiles at their first crush.

Lena smiled at her like someone smiles at the sunrise or sunset.

Lena smiled at her like she was the world.

Because, to Lena, Amélie _was_ her world.

The ring hanging on the leather cord around Lena's neck increased in weight to be around a thousand kilograms.

Everyone yelled and shouted and laughed at shitty jokes for the duration of the ride, and it finally struck Lena that an omnic, a cybernetically enhanced and remade person, a time traveling lesbian, a formerly brainwashed spy-sniper, and a pre-frozen snack pack of a woman were all hanging out with a vehemently (until now) opponent of cybernetic enhancement and omnics. Zarya's ideologies weren't as strict as Talon's, and she would never have openly slaughtered those she disliked and distrusted. But… now…

Lena knew that Zarya had been talking to Zenyatta frequently, but she never lingered to hear what the conversations were about. She thought it was mostly just their business to conduct in private even though they were in the kitchen, usually. There were only so many places to go in a small house. From what Lena could tell, though, she was working through her prejudices and learning to overcome her hatred and distrust.

What made her do it, though, Lena had no idea.

They all had to relearn some behaviors - even Lena - to truly overcome some of their issues against omnics overall, like Zarya, and then non-humanoid omnics, like Lena and the rest of the Overwatch gang, but it had been a process that Zenyatta willingly helped with and encouraged.

Lena was snatched out of her reverie by being jerked forward then backward in her seat while the van groaned under the stress of grinding gears. Usually, these things would self-park, but apparently, Amélie had opted to do it herself.

"YOU CAN'T PARALLEL PARK?" shouted Genji, clutching the driver's headrest.

"GENJI, I WAS PRETTY MUCH A VEGETABLE UNTIL A FEW MONTHS AGO, GIVE ME A BREAK. I MAY HAVE FORGOTTEN SOME THINGS," Amélie yelled back, but she was smiling and Lena could see the laughter that she was trying to keep at bay.

Zenyatta's calm voice was also filled with underlying effervescence. "Dear, last time I checked, you could not drive at all, much less parallel park."

Genji's face flushed a brilliant red that Lena wasn't sure was healthy, but he was laughing all the same. Eventually, Mei had to muscle everyone out of the way to do the parking herself, being the only competent driver in the whole damn car.

Everyone poked and joked at one another's expense after getting out, and Lena threw her arm around Amélie's waist. "You know, if that would have had wings, I probably could have parked it."

Amélie pushed Lena away, breaking their contact and Lena's blood ran cold as she tottered and teetered on the edge of the curb before Amélie brought her back in her arms. The evening was still cool despite the lingering summer on the fall day's air.

Lena looked up at the golden Amélie, a street light her orange halo glinting off her hair, and very much wanted to kiss her there.

The ring on her chest turned into a lead weight again.

Lena swallowed hard as they maintained eye contact. "A-Amélie…"

"Are we going to do this or not?" hollered Zarya.

Lena felt the blood drain from her face, and she looked away from Amélie's eyes. "Yeah, never mind. Let's go."

Amélie wrinkled her eyebrows but let whatever was bothering Lena go for the moment. She, as always, would be back on it eventually, but she was good enough to let it go for the meantime. Lena, on the other hand, was devastated that the moment couldn't be preserved like she wanted it to. But there would be better moments, right?

Something started eating away at the layers of her happiness and recently rediscovered confidence like some kind of burrowing insect that feasted on layers of paint. It only got worse as they walked into the cozy coffee house.

Lena found herself reminiscing about the first time she met Amélie in that cramped, crowded shop filled with raving fans and a flippant barista that Lena would have tried to woo. But she met Amélie that day. Her world changed that day. Maybe Lena didn't know it then, but it most certainly did change, and that was obvious now. It was as obvious in the distinct way Amélie's knuckles clacked against her own when they held hands. It was as distinct in the way their fingers, intertwined loosely, still had some space between them. It was as distinct in the way Amélie's nose crinkled when she laughed. It was as distinct in the way Amélie held Lena close when she was half asleep and yelling. In the way that Amélie leaned over in the dead of night sometimes when she thought Lena was sleeping and would whisper to herself about how lucky she was. Or how she would talk to Gérard sometimes when she thought no one was looking or listening. In the way that they told each other they loved one another. And how they meant it with everything they had within themselves.

Lena barely could get outside of her own head enough to order when the waiter approached and got lost again in her own thoughts before Aleksandra whacked her on the shoulder in a "gentle" bro bump. It nearly knocked Lena out of her chair.

"What?" she said, frowning.

"What are your thoughts on bringing particle physics into a light conversation? You're a smart pup, yes?"

Lena blinked and Amélie squeezed her hand.

"Well, Zarya, I mean… I'm not really sure about particle physics since that's not really my area of expertise, but I _do_ know that I'm the most aerodynamic, stealthy motherfucker the world's ever seen."

Amélie snorted. "Hardly. You're nothing but a fluff ball wearing a giant neon sign on your chest, and your suit's yellow for crying out loud. You're essentially a traffic disaster and a pomeranian all in one package."

Lena opened her mouth in mock offense. "I'll have you know that having an open-fronted suit to seduce the enemy while you're a sniper isn't very good costume design."

Amélie rolled her eyes and started to say something with a glint of Widowmaker in her eyes, and Lena started feeling a little bad about talking about her Talon days, but the waiter returned to the rowdy group lounging on a few of the coffee shop's many couches and broke up any building tension.

Amélie took some of the sugar and lumped it in her coffee with a splash of creamer provided on the community coffee table, and Lena leaned over to prepare her own coffee, a departure from her usual preference of tea, but she felt some sense of urgency to not let the night end, much like Amélie's time before she went back to Talon. Much like their last night together in Florence. As she gnawed on her bottom lip and dumped in enough sugar to kill a diabetic in one gulp, Lena felt her hair rustle just a fraction of a second before sweet, slightly sticky, chapsticked lips brushed up against her ear.

"You never seemed to mind my outfit's design," Amélie purred, keeping her voice just below the ambient noise of the café.

Where her lips were just a moment before caught fire and burned like the sun, and Lena tried very hard to focus on the jovial conversation unfolding in front of her, but she wasn't doing such a bang up job of it.

Instead, she was too focused on the way Amélie's fingers trailed down her thigh thoughtlessly. She was distracted by the way Amélie ruffled her short hair and laughed. She was distracted by the way Amélie's lips rested gently on her mug when she was thinking of a response to someone's prompt.

Mei started up with something, though, that caught Lena's attention. "You know, I really don't understand what we're supposed to be preparing for or how."

Lena looked away from her half-empty coffee mug and felt the indigestion brewing already.

Genji settled his cup in a saucer and munched thoughtfully on a biscuit. "You know, I'm not really sure either. I have to say, I'm not particularly excited to be seeing Reyes again."

Zarya grunted. "He was no match for the mountain and a blizzard out in Antarctica."

Mei nudged her girlfriend with her elbow. "We had the home advantage since… you know. I was frozen for almost ten years and also kind of an ice expert and how you're basically just a polar bear."

Zarya flexed and Lena could just _hear_ the way the seams on her long sleeve shirt screamed. "I always have the advantage with these." She leaned over and planted a sloppy kiss on Mei's cheek. "And you!"

Something stirred in Lena at the way Mei's cheeks flushed and the way Mei leaned over to rest her cheek on her incredibly buff girlfriend's arm, mushing up her face and skewing her glasses a little.

"We should all be thankful that we have one another to make up for our own weaknesses, for sure, but I cannot help but worry about some members of our company," said Zenyatta after a long pause. From his slumped shoulders and lowered head, Lena could tell that this was something he'd been thinking about for a while.

"Hana," Amélie clarified - a statement more than a question.

Zenyatta inclined his head in acknowledgement. "I worry for her mental health. She has been improving with interaction, but I fear that she is ignoring her root problem."

Lena felt her mouth pull over in a guilty looking face, feeling like he wasn't just talking about Hana, but she wasn't concerned enough to cover that up at the moment since the focus was pretty much _just_ on Hana. "She's doing a lot better, I think. She's getting back into her routine, and she's eating. Her mood seems more stable than it was."

"I have invited her out many times," sighed Zarya, losing some of her characteristic joviality. "She declines with a joke, but she is still isolating."

Mei started in on her fingernails and busied herself with her phone, looking at news and cat pictures probably. This was uncomfortable for all of them, but Mei wasn't fucking around and pretending not to be bothered.

"I have… talked with her," Zenyatta said, not looking up as if this was some big secret he was just now confessing in a court of law. "She is more stable, yes, but I fear that as soon as she goes back out into battle that she will fall once more into despair."

Lena glanced over at Amélie, trying not to draw attention to her. She was doing enough of that for herself by running her free hand through her hair over and over, rubbing on the spot at the base of her skull where the hair pattern was severely messed up from the surgery.

"It might also give her a reason to find peace," objected Genji, his voice soft.

Zenyatta turned his head toward him. "Did it ever help you, dear?"

Genji looked down, his mottled face pink and white. "No, but it did help Jesse." Lena felt Amélie tense just slightly. No one else would have noticed, not even Lena, unless they'd been holding Amélie's hand and watching the way she set down her cup a little more firmly than necessary. "And… After a time, I was able to return to the field to help do good."

"Jesse McCree is…" Zenyatta put a thoughtful finger to his mouth. "Jesse McCree may be able to talk to her and get her to open up."

Lena looked up at Amélie again, but Amélie's eyes were distant and unseeing for a few moments before she seemed to come back to herself - her face taking on a little more character than it had only a few seconds before. The slackness in her expression - the chilly neutrality - reminded Lena so much of Widowmaker that it nearly instilled panic, but Lena was getting used to this kind of behavior. It was too easy for Amélie to remember the horrible things she'd done while under control of someone else, and now that she _could_ remember, it would take time before Widowmaker could be kept fully at bay.

Overall, that was terrifying considering what they intended to do.

"I…" Amélie started. She swallowed and shook her head, looking up with the beginnings of glistening eyes. Her rigidity from Jesse's mention seemed to spread over her whole body - her shoulders hunched painfully, her jaw clenched so tightly that Lena could see her tendons and muscles standing out, and her fingers turned into claws. "I intended to only talk about this with Zenyatta, but…" She looked down, trying to hold back her tears. "The more people who know, the better, I think."

Zenyatta placed his hand on Amélie's knee, and Lena squeezed her hand, and Amélie squeezed back like she was in horrible pain and trying to hold on to consciousness. _Ow._

"What is it, friend?"

"I'm… I'm afraid… I won't be…" She closed her eyes. "I'm afraid I'll snap once I get out there."

They all fell silent, and Mei even looked up from her phone, her index fingernail still trapped between her teeth.

"Amélie, even if that does happen, we'll be there to help you," Lena responded immediately. It halfway sounded like she was giving a canned response, but Amélie's shoulders shook with her silent sobs.

"Amélie…" started Zenyatta. "I do not mean to treat you as a child, but… is it wise for you to come…?"

Amélie could only shrug.

Lena came to her defense. "She's the only one who can do it. Ana won't."

Genji blew out a long breath. "This is not ideal."

"Should we talk to Angela?" asked Zarya.

"No," snapped Lena and Amélie at the same time.

Mei, who'd been quiet, kept her voice low, but her words and tone were as frigid as Lena had ever heard them. "We should… take that into account that you could go rogue, but we should leave killing you as a last measure." She stopped, then added, "For a lot of reasons."

Genji shook his head. "Absolutely not. We won't hurt you. _I_ won't hurt you. I won't let anyone else hurt you, either. You're part of the family now, and we don't leave family behind. We don't leave family to fend for themselves, and we don't kill our own family. You've shown that you can come back if you lapse and those lapses are getting shorter and fewer and further between." He turned to Mei, eyes glaring with justified rage. "We will not hurt her."

Lena blinked at Genji with a gaping mouth. She'd never really hard him get mad before - not on behalf of someone else, at least. She'd seen him get heated, of course. They'd all seen each other get heated, but this was… this was _anger_. This was the just rage that Lena heard Zenyatta talking about from time to time, and it was terrifying in its own way.

Mei shrugged. "I make no promises."

Zenyatta looked around at everyone, and Lena could practically see him sweating. "I think that's a bit of a drastic measure, Mei. Genji is right about-"

"I think it's smart to have a contingency plan," Amélie whispered. "Just in case I can't be reasoned with."

Mei nodded. "It's settled. I'll put you on ice if we can't figure out what else to do with you."

Lena swallowed hard. "You mean like… temporarily freeze her, right?"

Mei's eyes shifted from Amélie to Lena, the glint of her glasses obscuring her eyes after a moment. "Whatever it takes."

Lena didn't like that very much.

"I don't like that very much," Lena said.

Amélie laughed, but it was mixed with a stopped up kind of noise and a snort - the way you do when you're crying and someone makes you laugh where the spit gets all viscous and your nose is running a bit.

Everyone was staring at her pretty hard, Lena included. Something felt very wrong. Lena's stomach rolled over again in the feeling that these laughs were going to turn into something much more hysterical, but they did not. The unease, though, did not subside.

"Is this what family is like?" She laughed, smiling though tears eeked out of her eyes and down her cheeks.

Lena could only give a half-hearted smile back. "Yeah, love. We'll protect you."

Zarya attempted to lighten the mood, but Lena thought she just made it worse. With a flashy, grand smile, she bellowed in her laughing way, "And if we can't, we'll just get rid of you, yes?"

Amélie still giggled, though, her cheeks dark from where she'd been scrubbing tears away. "You have such a way with words, Aleksandra."

* * *

The rest of the time at the shop was much lighter, avoiding conversations about the immediate future entirely.

Aleksandra and Mei decided to hitch a cab to a hotel for the night in Groningen and spend the next day doing god-knows-what. They often went off on their own with some kind of funds from somewhere. Seeing as how Zarya was essentially a celebrity in Russia and how she was still drawing a pension from Volskaya Industries, it could have been on her dime, but Mei was also well off enough through working with Overwatch and her compensation for after her thawing. Sure, Overwatch had been disbanded, but that didn't mean there hadn't been many, many, _many_ contingency plans just in case the organization fell.

Genji and Zenyatta wanted to go back to the house, but Lena and Amélie declined the ride back.

"Who will drive you two?" Amélie asked, beaming in the orange-lit sidewalk.

"Oh, uh, um…" Genji started.

"We will call a cab!" exclaimed Zenyatta, clapping. "You two may drive the van back to the Headquarters, yes?"

Lena smiled and nodded, and they said their good night's.

Amélie offered her hand, and Lena reached out to take it with a, "Where do you want to go, A?"

Her smile told Lena that she had plenty in mind but didn't want to say just yet. "Hana told me about somewhere she thought I might like to go, and apparently they're only open at night."

The air started to turn even cooler now that the sun had been down for some time, and Lena shoved her and Amélie's hands into her jacket pocket. The look she caught from Amélie definitely made her wonder what was up, but she followed, having the unease from earlier melt away and stay behind on the sidewalk to their destination, which was a small bakery with sickly sweet pink furniture and decoration. It was essentially like one of Hana's "kawaii" moods had physically manifested into a building. The smell of pure sugar heroin wafted out of the door and slapped Lena in the face, giving her diabetes instantly, as soon as Amélie opened the glass door.

Happy chimes announced their entry and soft, happy music drifted lazily out of white speakers. This bakery had a seating area made up of a mishmosh of equally sweet and fluffy chairs, couches, stools facing the wide window facing the street, and benches - all outfitted with the same baby pink upholstery, accented with dainty, lacy looking pillows.

"Amélie, what in the fresh hell is this?"

"A bakery," she stated simply, pulling Lena along to the counter.

Lena could hardly read the low-contrast, cutesy script on the bakery's offerings board, but she could make out that this was the most extensive confectionary service that she'd possibly ever seen in real life. _And so close to home… I'll never get Amélie to go anywhere else._

She made a mental note of one or two things she wanted to try and a tea that she could sip on while she did, but Amélie was much more decisive, going up to the counter and ordering a dozen macarons - half vanilla, half strawberry - and a variety of danishes, breads, and baguettes. Oh, and one bowl of caramel-ribboned ice cream with a chocolate shell and crushed walnuts on top. The total at the register made Lena's insides scream.

"wHERE ARE YOU GETTING THIS MONEY?" Lena wheezed, clutching her chest and feeling her eyes water. Sure, Overwatch agents had a continually regenerating pool of money, but if it ran out in a certain amount of time, it just fucking ran out.

Amélie shrugged. "Everyone has been helping me get on my feet with new clothes and providing me with food and luxuries. The least I can do now that Athena unlocked Gérard's accounts is to buy them a few gifts. Besides, isn't it you and Hana who keep telling me, 'treat yo' self'?"

It sounded positively ridiculous coming out of her lovely, pouty mouth.

Lena couldn't help but laugh. Everything - her mood, the tension between them, the sadness from earlier - seemed so much lighter in this diabetic hell. Laughing came easier, as it always did with Amélie.

"The macarons and ice cream are mine, though," Amélie clarified, shoving her change into her pocket like an animal.

Lena pulled her wallet from her back pocket - a simple leather wallet with some floral imprint designs on it - and paid for her slice of Victoria sandwich cake and lavender-lemon tea. The two of them went and sat next to one another on one of the couches, which was surprisingly comfortable even though it had that new/not-worn-down-by-many-buttcheeks feel to it.

She dumped a little demerara sugar into her tea without first sipping to see if she needed it and realized too late that the mug had been pre-sweetened. She drank it anyway, watching how Amélie's… everything contrasted so heavily against the surroundings. Everything in the building had smooth edges - even the register, and Amélie's cheekbones, her collarbone, her body - all of her was sharp and seemed to cut through the atmosphere like a knife. Her caramel skin and her dark clothes seemed to stand out so sharply against the pink-and-white backdrop that she seemed to be completely removed from this reality. Her eyes were golden like a harvest moon, and her berry stained lips dripped honeyed words.

Lena found herself staring at Amélie a little too hard and looked away, the bubbling rumbles of quiet shame whipping up in her guts. She felt it in her cheeks, too.

Amélie tore her eyes away from the windows peeking into the outside world away from the cotton and rabbit fur softness of the bakery and stared at Lena for a time, her cheeks full like a chipmunk.

She swallowed and slurped some of her own tea. "What? Do I have something on my face?"

Lena's mouth moved on it's own. "Do you want to get married?" _WHAT ARE YOU DOING?_

Amélie's eyes widened and she wiped at her mouth. "What?"

"I mean like… we're dating and all." _YOU UTTER FOOL! PLEASE STOP WHILE YOU'RE ALREADY BEHIND!_ "And I just… I love you, Amélie." _IDIOT!_ "And I know you love me, and I know it's weird, probably." She noticed herself talking faster and getting incredibly sweaty. She shed her leather jacket like some protective cocoon of sanity and _**just. kept. talking.**_ "Actually, yeah, it's really weird, and I don't really know what I'm saying anymore, I don't guess, but Amélie, I love you a lot, and I've been wondering when I could bring this up since it always seems like the wrong time, but do you… do you wanna get married?"

 _PLEASE! STOP! TALKING!_

"Lena?" Amélie asked, her eyebrows furrowed and her lip between her teeth. "Are you feeling well?"

"I feel like I'm about to yartz all over the damn table, but I don't know. Better now than never, maybe?" She started laughing, but stopped so that she wouldn't, in fact, yartz all over the table.

 _YOUR THIRST WILL BE THE END OF YOU, YOU USELESS LESBIAN!_

Amélie set down her half-eaten cream horn and sat there, blinking blankly at Lena. "You want to…? Get? Married? Like… A wedding and stuff? I… What? Us? Now?"

"Maybe not right now since that would be weird, but I…" _Oh, GOD, what are you doing._ "I…" Lena suddenly remembered the ring around her neck, clawing to get to it like it was burning her and nearly snapped off her stabilizing jewelry instead, which would have been terrible. She held it out so abruptly that she almost smacked Amélie squarely in the nose. "SORRY."

Amélie pulled back a little, laughing without much sound other than some wheezing here and there. "What are we _doing_?"

Lena laughed too, but it didn't feel strained any more than she already felt like an ass. "I guess we're getting engaged?"

Amélie grinned, the smallest crumb of a strawberry macaron dusting the side of her mouth near her left cheek. "I guess we are, chérie."

She leaned in and kissed Lena rather roughly for being in public and stood, marching back to the counter and coming back with six more macarons in hand.

"Amélie, you just ate like… a thousand. Why are you getting more?"

Amélie smiled wickedly, the sweetness on her face replaced by want. "Because I'm going to eat these off your naked body."

They drove home as quickly as possible.


	62. Sex

The drive home stretched out for eternities. Worlds and stars died and were reborn in the time that it took to get back, no matter how fast Amélie drove.

Every streetlamp that illuminated the two lovers barreling down the highway in the late hours of the evening sent Lena's heart thudding with thoughts of the lovely Amélie with her again.

But there was something different about this.

Something more different than Florence when Lena thought her body would simply erupt into flames and something more different than their first time together, no matter how loving and awkward it was. Something more different than the crashing and burning worlds than she experienced with Emily in Australia. Something so _surreal_.

Every vein in her body was just a conductor of raw energy that coursed through her. Raw desire. And desire to get rawed.

There was hesitance in Florence.

Fear.

With Emily, there had been anger.

Resentment.

In their first time, there was guilt.

So much guilt even though Lena thought on it fondly.

This was… new.

This was like every flower in the world decided to bloom out from under snow and melt it all away. This was like the earth falling in a straight line toward the sun. This was the other side of a black hole. This was unknown territory.

They were… free… for a time.

And they were free from the fears and anxieties of their pasts.

They were suspended in a time before their future became the present.

Lena reached out in the occasionally broken darkness and brushed her fingers along the back of Amélie's hand, but Amélie caught her and brought her fingers to her lipstick-stained mouth, kissing them and putting one into her mouth. Lena made a noise halfway between a strangled gasp and a small cry as Amélie did so and rolled her tongue lazily across Lena's knuckles, sucking lightly before guiding Lena away and into the wettest hand-holding Lena had certainly ever done. She involuntarily clamped her legs a little tighter together like that would cut off some of the pressure building inside her.

"UM." Steam practically poured off of Lena like some shitty cartoon.

"Gérard always seemed to like that. Good to know it works for you, too."

Lena looked over, feeling some of that nervousness creeping back in at Gérard's mention, but Amélie was smiling instead of looking sullen and grief-stricken like she usually did. Until now, the best that she could do was a sad smile that was more upsetting than if she actually burst into tears every time someone brought him up. But… that wasn't the case now.

 _That's not the case_ _ **lately**_ _,_ Lena corrected herself.

But then again, she stopped being able to think and went into full caveman mode when Amélie started rubbing tiny circles on the back of her hand. This wasn't the normal circle rubbing, mind you. This was the I'm-about-to-fuck-you-senseless kind. The tension building kind.

Lena didn't think her tiny body could handle much more tension, though.

The two of them essentially crashed into and through the house after skidding into the garage and bailing, nearly forgetting to put the damn van into park. Hover cars, after all, were still cars.

Amélie slammed the door open and snatched Lena inside, barely waiting to close the door unnervingly softly and gently before diving in to kiss her roughly. Lena's head was already spinning from running around and just trying to get inside, but Amélie seemed to be running a half a step ahead of Lena.

Her hands were as intense as her kisses, pulling at Lena's jacket and slam dunking it to the floor. Her lips were fire on Lena's skin, but Lena could hardly breathe for how close she was. Her head went from spinning to swimming to darkening corners of her vision.

Amélie pulled back, her eyes wide, but she said nothing, instead studying Lena's face before kissing her more softly this time, pulling off her own jacket and unbuttoning her jeans to slide them down her legs.

Lena followed suit, one hand on Amélie's angular face, the other deftly snapping the three buttons on her high waisted jeans, kind of regretting she was wearing so many clothes to begin with. Amélie's hands were starting to rove a little more now that she saw that Lena had managed to take a breath and get settled. Lena, in her horny fog, wiggled out of her jeans, nearly falling over in the process. The stubborn denim was still wrapped around one foot when Amélie hoisted her up against the wall and pinned her thigh under Lena's barely covered crotch.

Lena gasped out an elongated sigh, her head rocking back and pressing into the wall.

She'd been wearing her nice underwear.

The kind of underwear that was mostly mesh and lace.

And fake satin.

With bows.

And minimal fabric.

It was a thing she'd started doing more since she and Amélie had been living together.

"You're mine, Lena Oxton," she whispered.

Lena felt her heart stutter and rev like Roadhog and Junkrat's old engine in their ancient car. She found her throat tightening, and instead of a sigh, she let out a long, high pitched whine that sounded like a squeaky screen door slowly swinging open. Not particularly sexy, Lena thought, but Amélie pulled her off the wall and tore her shirt off, leaving biting nail marks down the length of Lena's back.

"Mine…" she whispered again, and Lena's ear felt like someone tried to pierce her ear again.

"Ow," she half-mumbled, but she was too confused to know if it actually hurt or if she was just saying it out of habit and rather enjoyed it. She was leaning toward some kind of midline.

Amélie pulled back just the slightest bit to where her lips weren't touching Lena's ear anymore. "I want you…"

Her voice was low and sweet, close enough to Lena's ear to feel warmth but not enough to touch. Her voice - the way it fluttered against her ear as softly as butterfly wings beat - sent shivering tickles down Lena's spine from the crown of her head to her tailbone. A short, almost chuff of air wooshed out of her in neither a gasp nor a sigh. Her back arched off of the cool wall, and the nail lines trailing down her back began to burn again.

Amélie's words came out a little more enunciated, a little less accented, as she spoke again, leaning her head into Lena's neck and pushing up with her thigh a little more. "I want you so bad, Lena."

Lena let her eyes open just a bit, still holding onto all of the lovely pressure and roughness Amélie pushed on her, and looked down her nose to look into Amélie's honeyed eyes. "Then have me, Amélie."

Amélie lay her hands gently on the smallest width of Lena's back and leaned into her chest, which was propped considerably by a mega-super-ultra push up bra from an overpriced retailer. "Say it…" Amélie left lipstick stained kisses all over one side of Lena's accentuated chest. "Please."

Lena missed a beat, but she felt the air huffing through her nose a little more intensely as the words came from low in her throat. "I'm _yours_."

Amélie took that as all the permission in the world and picked Lena up by the undersides of her thighs, and some rational part of Lena wondered where in the hell all of this strength came from before remembering that Amélie had been training again and practicing dance with members a lot heavier than her. Amélie did something unexpected, though, and instead of throwing Lena on the bed like she thought she might, Amélie nestled her on the pile of covers that Lena had left in a nest before the two of them had gotten ready earlier and kissed Lena sweetly. There was none of the searing heat that was in her kisses and fingers only a few moments before.

Amélie closed her eyes and rocked back, elbows on the bed, her hands still on Lena's back. Her eyes locked with Lena's, and Lena felt and heard a tiny sigh escape her parted lips.

"A-are you okay?"

Amélie answered with a long kiss placed just under Lena's navel which sent kindling flames and embers soaring into an ever-hotter fire. It wasn't the flame of a heat death, though. Not the way it had been with Emily. This was the blaze of a forest burning down so that a lusher one may grow.

"If I could stop the world," Amélie started, her lips still brushing Lena's skin. "I would have this night forever."

Lena nodded once and started to open her mouth only to let out a deep moan from Amélie putting her whole mouth on Lena, over her underwear and all.

Lena writhed in the momentary explosion of bliss from the way the mesh felt on her body - soaked and compacted against her skin by her own body and Amélie's tongue, which dragged slowly - flatly, _unyieldingly_ \- and lazily across Lena's underwear and outer labia.

"You're going to have to be quiet," Amélie said, pulling back, rubbing slow circles onto the small of Lena's scratched back.

Lena, still panting and dizzy, shook her head. "Athena!"

Athena blinked on, covered her omnic eyes, and shouted, "OH MY FUCKING GOD. WHAT."

"Get everyone out, yeah? Gas leak or something."

Amélie snorted, and the cool air against where Lena was already hot and slicked down with saliva and more made Lena groan and arch off of the bed.

"FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST, LENA. REALLY? FINE! COOL! LET ME HANDLE IT! WHAT THE FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK!"

And she blinked off in quite the hurry. A moment later, the tv clicked on again with Athena, her eyes still covered. "Everyone out of the house. You're all shut-ins anyway. Go out and have fun and for the love of CHRIST don't come back tonight."

Amélie pulled back, crawling up next to Lena with a smile. "Really? A gas leak?" She laughed her melodic little laugh and ran a hand through her hair. "That's the least sexy thing I can honestly think of."

"Hey, Athena said she'd-" Lena's phone went off, and she grabbed it in the lull of their sex.

 **[9/20 22:34 ARE YOU SERIOUSLY FUCKING RIGHT! NOW!]**

Lena felt the flames in her start dying out, but she started laughing anyway. She wasn't even bothered by the interruption if it meant that she and Amélie could have a night alone together.

 **[9/20 22:34 what r u gonna do about it if we are]**

Lena paused then added,

 **[9/20 22:35 bitch.]**

 **[9/20 22:35 me, every night you idiots decide to fuck:**

 **[9/20 22:36 hana, please i'm dying. i need this.]**

 **[9/20 22:36 fine, we'll all go somewhere else so you can FUCK!]**

 **[9/20 22:37 thnx bb i owe all of you exactly one.]**

 **[9/20 22:37 keep your orgasms, ya filthy animal]**

Lena couldn't keep herself from falling into giggles and trying to show Amélie the conversation between her and Hana, but she couldn't hold the phone still enough, so Amélie took it and joined her in the giggle fit, starting first as a short huff of indelicate laughter then devolving into snorts.

The two of them lay in bed, still in their underwear, and watched the shadows from under the door shuffle quickly past their room.

"Wanna do dirty and do it in the kitchen when they're gone?"

Lena's laugh turned into something like a moan. And by something _like_ a moan, it was a moan. A fairly loud one, considering that there were still people evacuating the premises.

Jesse hollered from the other side of the door, "GIT IT. GIT IT, AMÉLIE."

His ungodly boots clomped quickly away, and Lena felt her soul leaving her body.

Améllie looked over at Lena, who was still prone on the bed and hadn't moved. Now shame was weighting her body to that exact spot.

"This wasn't how I envisioned the night going, love."

Amélie rolled a shoulder. "Would it be a night with us if something bizarre didn't happen?"

Lena turned her head over to look at Amélie and really appreciate how much her body had changed. Her breasts - as atrophied as they were from starvation and nutritional deprivation - were filled back in along with her hips and her stomach. Her ribs didn't poke out like a skeleton anymore, and in fact, her tummy had a little pooch from eating consistently and being cooped up, no matter how much training she did. It wasn't noticeable, by any means, unless you were looking at her in a comparison to how she was only a few months before. And Lena found herself incredibly grateful for the break in their ferocious foreplay to really sit back and appreciate her fiancé in a way that she hadn't been able to until right that second.

"Amélie?"

"Yes, Lena?" Her eyelids were half closed as her eyes clearly tracked over Lena's mostly naked body.

"Can we… go slow…?"

Amélie blinked. "Surely you don't think this is a one and done deal?"

Lena swallowed and pushed herself up, feeling a little unsure how to do what Amélie did so well. Lena had never really been a fantastic top unlike Amélie, who was a professional aggressive top. Then again, the only other serious relationship she'd had was with Emily, who always insisted on having the control but not listening very well.

In essence, Lena was a pro at being a slutty bottom but never really had the opportunity to get up and take charge. Not that she generally wanted to, but now seemed like a good time to try.

She leaned over to Amélie and started to go in for a kiss but pulled back right before Amélie could plant one, and she watched Amélie's sweet gaze turn into something feline - something competitive.

"Slow and you start with this?"

Lena felt herself blushing head to toe and changed tactics very quickly. "I'm not really sure what I'm doing, Amélie."

Amélie smiled, the sweetness returning, and she held out her hand in the short distance between them. "Come here and let me show you."

Lena took her hand, feeling more like a goobus every passing second, and let herself be guided on top of Amélie, who looked up with stars in her eyes. Her radiant face was glowing from an underpainted blush on her cheeks and neck and collarbone. Even her chest - her breasts - and her stomach were alight with it, and Lena wanted to see more of her. Much more.

Amélie ran her hands around Lena's back to rest on her hips.

"Move with me," she whispered, her eyelids remaining half-open as she looked up at Lena.

Lena did as she was told and found herself getting more quickly into the groove than she thought she would. Soon, she was rocking against the still partially-clothed Amélie, leaning over with her hands on Amélie's shoulders, her fingers digging into Amélie's warm skin and pushing her down into the mattress.

Amélie leaned her head back and stretched out her long, beautiful neck, which Lena kissed fervently, trying to stifle the silly little sounds escaping her lips. Instead, she just made them against the softness of Amélie's increasingly warm skin. Amélie's own breaths began to color with soft moans, delicate things. Tiny noises and the occasional squeak.

Lena found herself gnawing on her own bottom lip and pulled back from her head buried in the corner of Amélie's neck and shoulder, not stopping her rhythm but becoming all too aware of how much friction she was putting on herself with _mesh_ underwear. Amélie's faux-satin underwear probably would be giving her more yield, but there was only so much grinding you could do before it started to chafe.

"Lena…" Amélie sighed, her eyes fluttering open. "Don't stop."

Lena stopped anyway.

Amélie's eyes opened more consciously this time, and Lena could feel her heart moving all over the place in her own body as she looked down at Amélie, her head resting so beautifully on the ancient, Overwatch-issued grey pillowcase that covered her pillow, and for the first time, Lena thought she could understand how Amélie could find her beautiful if she felt this way from this angle about her. From this angle - like all angles to Lena, but this was more profound for some reason - Amélie was simply a goddess in scarlet red, overpriced, special-occasion underwear.

Lena reached around with one hand and popped the two hooks on the back of her own bra off and slid it off slowly, feeling a little silly but too horny to really genuinely care.

Amélie's eyes shone in the lamplight - hungry eyes of a wolf trying to be patient. She started to push herself up, but Lena pushed her gently back down, and Amélie, petulantly, relented to Lena's delicate push.

There was some panic that started rising in Lena's gut, somewhere along the lines of _What do I do?_ and _I look like a total horse's arse._ But she pushed through and kissed her way down Amélie's body, noticing again how much her complexion and her body looked so much better than it had. The last time she and Amélie had really gotten up to any monkey business, she'd still had bruises, and her ribs poked from her skin painfully. Now, it was _exactly_ like Lena had always dreamed.

It'd been… quite some time since they had time like this together.

She followed Amélie's lead from earlier, mimicking the same moves she'd done and leaving sloppy, spit drenched dark spots on the fake satin. Her tongue felt a little like she'd just tried to eat silk, but the strange texture issue was completely worth it for the groan that escaped Amélie - one of the more rare sounds.

It wasn't that Lena didn't reciprocate.

It was usually that Amélie wore her completely the _fuck_ out before she ever got to return the favor in full. Besides, Amélie didn't seem to care much about her own satisfaction as she did Lena's. She'd said over and over and over, despite Lena's incessant asking, that she preferred to please than to be pleased but that she wouldn't ever turn it down if Lena had the energy to go for a long while.

This was one of the only times that Lena hadn't been wiped out by four back-to-back-to-back-to-back orgasms, which was just par for the course if Amélie got after her. For Lena to spring it on Amélie always turned into Amélie springing onto and into her.

Not that Lena didn't already know this about Amélie even before their first time together.

She'd always been incredibly open about her and Gérard's sexual activity. And who initiated it. And what they were both into.

In hindsight, it was probably an invitation, but Lena was far too dense to figure that out at the time.

Lena rocked back, her hands slipping around the tops of Amélie's thighs and under them.

Amélie whined low. "Why did you stop…?"

"I don't think this is slow," Lena answered, feeling a little more sheepish.

"We don't usually _do_ slow," Amélie protested.

Lena shook her head and slid back up Amélie's body, kissing her softly, relishing the way her lips still tasted like strawberry macarons. "I want this… to be..."

Amélie kissed her again, wrapping her strong arms around Lena's neck, holding Lena there suspended in a kiss that did not deepen nor did it grow more passionate. It was a kiss of understanding. It was a kiss of love and passion. It was a new kind of kiss for them - not a quick peck, not a fervent, desperate thing, not a sad thing, not a guilty thing.

When the kiss came to a close, Amélie sighed, looking up at Lena, and wrapped her legs around Lena's waist. "I'm scared of it all, too."

Lena wedged her little hands under Amélie's back and squeezed her in the best hug she could manage. "Yeah…"

"We'll get through it together, alright?"

Lena nodded.

"Now," Amélie said, smiling widely. "Get back to it, yeah?"

Lena swallowed and obliged, starting to move her body down Amélie's again, but Amélie caught her in a kiss and guided her hand that wasn't propping her up down the length of her body. "We'll go slow for now, but… no promises for later."

Lena couldn't help herself from smiling, feeling the tiny fear sprouting in the back of her mind and in her stomach die out like RoundUp on a weed in the middle of a hot summer.

Lena's eyes fluttered closed as Amélie's cool fingers so delicately touched her cheek, and her own hand stopped its rhythmic motion against Amélie's underwear. "I just… want…" She sighed and her fingers against Lena's skin began to tremble as Lena picked up the pace a little. "I'm so glad to look at you."

Lena kissed her again, slowly at first, and matched her fancy work with the speed and motion of their kisses, but she slid her hand up along the length of Amélie's lower stomach before slipping her fingers in those completely drenched, entirely-too-expensive underwear.

Her head snapped back as Amélie grabbed onto the short hair on the back of her head and pulled down rather hard as soon as Lena's already-tiring fingers touched the soft, slick, delicate folds of Amélie and gently pushed their way into her, but there was more heat in that moment than Lena thought they'd have on a first round, and they were both suspended in the moment for a time before Amélie relaxed again, _her_ fingers digging into _Lena'_ s shoulder this time.

Lena didn't move for a moment until Amélie gave a tiny nod followed by a long shaky breath. Her mouth fell a little slack as soft noises came to match Lena's movements. She pushed harder against Amélie with the heel of her hand as she slipped a third finger in, and that was about the max that she knew Amélie could handle, even though Lena's fingers were relatively small compared to… _No, don't think about him right now_.

"Lena…" she moaned, her head tilting back, her hips pushing in the opposite direction of Lena's pushes and circles to deepen the motion.

Lena's heart beat loudly in her ears to the point that it nearly drowned out Amélie's soft calls, but Amélie wasn't about to be outdone by a silly heartbeat. Her voice rose bit by bit, foul things rushing from her lips like some river of lewd confessions, and Lena was fairly sure her shoulder was going to start bleeding.

She found herself wanting to keep Amélie like this - vulnerable and begging and _gasping_ her name - but on the other hand, she wanted to hear Amélie call out so sweetly in the shaking grasp of bliss.

She ended up going with the second option, pushing even more roughly against Amélie, kissing her and nipping and pressing herself against Amélie's thigh to cool some of the pressure and heat of her own distraction.

Amélie, though, was a thrasher.

She called Lena's name more and more loudly into a yell and her body's erratic movements nearly tossed Lena off with the job half finished, but Lena held on tight, pushing Amélie's shoulder into the bed, her whole right arm feeling more and more like it was on the verge of cramping. The payoff of those ridiculously exaggerated promises from Amélie's lips fading into swears in both English and French intermingled with her name put a smile on Lena's face for her. _That_ was what she wanted.

She didn't always want to have to have Amélie watching out for her.

This way, they could share the load…

And that night, they did.

Repeatedly.


	63. Part One: The Show Must Go On

Her lips felt as numb as the few words that had managed to escape her lips since the night before, like moths fluttering in the darkness toward some distant light. Her body did not feel any more her own than Ana's rifle in her hands felt like her pistols. Was she trying to pilot Hana's unfamiliar mech, or move around in her own body? Her breaths felt wrong - inhaling too much and not exhaling enough… or something. Her nose was too _there_ , but she still couldn't feel the tip of it.

 _Lena…_ Amélie had gasped so beautifully in the night. _Mine…_

Now, Lena couldn't feel anything.

Now…

Now, the future was quickly becoming the present.

Now, Lena stood there with Amélie in hand, looking down at the table where Winston kept his larger projects. Stretched out before them was something that was… in all respects, relatively unimpressive at first glance.

Everything that Winston had laid out was the height of functionality, but… Lena thought she'd seen an ensemble like this before. She knew she had.

The feel of the canvas was practically the same as the jacket that Lena had brought Amélie home in.

The feel of the canvas on her fingertips registered in pulses of memory aligning with the throbbing in her head.

Winston's voice broke into those thoughts and pulled her attention back to the present. The future.

"I know it isn't nearly as fancy as anything that Talon did-" Amélie tensed by Lena's side, her fingers squeezing Lena's a little tighter. Lena halfway wondered how she could feel anything at the moment. Lena was struggling to do that for herself right then. "But this is what I could do in the circumstances. I had Genji and Ana go and secure materials from another safehouse. Nothing that'll be missed, of course. That one's gone unused for over a year, now."

That had heavy implications that Overwatch agents were being hunted with even more vigor than before Reyes's ascension.

The lights overhead seemed to glare down at her like angry white eyes from the ceiling. They wouldn't be safe even after they took care of Reyes. _If we can take him down_...

Lena felt her lips - the last thing about her that she _could_ feel besides the not-yet-nubby canvas underneath her fingertips - go numb at the thought of losing even more of them. There weren't many left. That would leave… maybe a dozen agents in the world that weren't the ones in Drachten. Lena probably didn't even know who they were. The organization had employed thousands and thousands of members at its height.

Her heart and body had already started thumping (before her brain could tell her to calm her ass down) when Amélie abruptly said, "Can I get this in black?"

Winston pushed up his glasses, the reflection of the overhead lights giving him a gleam of amusement. "Of course." He cleared his throat. "You know… Amélie, if you don't think you're ready…"

Amélie shook her head. "No. This needs to be done. My only request is that you make it…" She put a thoughtful finger to her lips. "Quiet. I need to have as little rustling as possible."

Winston nodded. "I've made some accommodations to your grappling hook and gauntlet, thanks to Sombra." He chuckled to himself, and Lena found that, in the void that wasn't so different from the Between, a spark of irritation lit a fuse. How could he be laughing right now? "I never thought I would say that after all that she's done to be a pain in our- Well, you know."

Amélie snorted, ruffling her cropped hair. "You can keep her."

Winston, unsure how to respond, continued, "Um… well… Anyway. Your gauntlet recharges faster, so you can travel more quickly from nest to nest. Your… hmm… Your…"

"Venom mines," Amélie offered, her lips curling into something between a snarl of hatred and one of unfortunate amusement. "I did not name them."

"Right, those." Winston cleared his throat. "I worked with Ana to make them similar to her biotic grenades, so that they can be tripped without friendly fire."

Amélie nodded once.

Lena watched her face then, feeling a little queasy in the wake of the tumultuous last few hours. Then again, didn't she already know that this was what was meant to happen?

"It's bulletproof, but close range fire can ruin your day, I'm afraid."

Amélie nodded. "I will not need to get too close to him, I hope."

Winston alone carried on about the specifics of Amélie's new suit design, but Lena couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was bound to happen. Something bad was always bound to happen when Reaper was involved. Why would this time be any different?

* * *

Lena sat in the offset of Winston's room that was serving as Angela's operating room. Her hospital ward.

Nothing was strapping Lena down except the weight of her own anxieties, but she might as well have had leather cuffs around her wrists and ankles for all the good trying to worm her way out of this one would have been. Angela's muttering didn't ease her nerves, which ate away at her stomach like ten thousand shrews descending on one piece of undersized whatever-shrews-eat.

What the fuck even were shrews.

Balls of fur with weird snoots and a big appetite? Right?

Lena kept trying to distract herself from the shadows outside with the images of small critters in her mind, but Angela and the writhing things just beyond the curtain made her think of what was to come.

Reaper.

And having a piece of him inside of all of them.

She was the last to have the implant, but everyone else had already yelped and yowled and left complaining.

Angela seemed to be losing her nerve, though. "Maybe. Maybe…" she muttered, pacing back and forth, picking up various items from the plastic table that housed all of her implements. "Last resort, right? Last resort."

Lena could hear her swallow from a meter away. "Only as a last resort."

She approached Lena with a fuck off humongous needle and Lena felt all the blood drain from her face to puddle in her feet. She couldn't even make a noise of protest before Angela had already spun and jammed the needle in her neck, between the hollow of her collarbone and her trapezius muscle, with a sadistic grimace. Lena heard her own ragged breath suck in with a paper-rattling wheeze. It was… unnerving to hear, in the least. She held it there for a time, almost involuntarily. It had become very hard to breathe for Lena. Like all the air was just hissing out of her, regardless of her efforts to suck it back in. Her lungs started aching from the sheer lack of anything in them before Angela pulled the trigger on her needle-gun and Lena felt something searing inside of her body. She knew it was roughly the size of a pea, but the ball of heat and pain _felt_ more like the size of a plum with the way it radiated.

The instant Angela withdrew her hell machine from Lena's body, Lena slumped over, the pain driving her to dry heaves that wracked her body, not quite distracting from the burning flare underneath her collarbone as the spot where the oversized needle had been lanced into her knitted together.

When Lena found her words, she gasped, "Angela. What… the fuck."

Angela didn't answer. She just rubbed the dark circles under her eyes like she was wiping away stubborn, phantom tears. She turned away from Lena to put the machine back on the plastic table and nodded once.

"If you… If you start feeling… Not like yourself. You need to tell someone as soon as possible." She stopped for a long moment. "Preferably me."

"What _is_ this?" Lena snapped, rubbing the back of her throbbing head with one hand and massaging the injection site with her other.

"Something to keep you alive" was all that Angela would say before she devolved back into her muttering about needing sleep before takeoff.

Lena left without another word only to find Fareeha standing outside of the plastic curtain with silent tears streaking down her cheeks. She grabbed Lena by the shoulders, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, squeezed Lena's shoulders, rubbed at her face, and then went to her girlfriend with a look stronger than Lena felt like she could muster in this trying time.

Lena had been… almost entirely silent today, watching her counterparts doing the same thing. It was only a matter of hours before they shipped out, and everyone was doing last minute checks on their equipment, looking over the schematics of the drone mapping they'd done with Sombra's drones before they got shot down by Talon's soldiers. They had just enough information to keep themselves from dying immediately upon entry, but there were a thousand Reaper fanatics and only twenty-one of them. Twenty-three if you counted Athena and Emily, who would be helping from well behind the front lines. Emily was going to stay in Drachten, piloting a small, unmanned mech that Torbjörn made for her. It was the closest thing they had to cannon fodder; Emily would only be able to control one at a time, but if it was destroyed, she would be able to transfer control to an identical model back at the airship.. She'd been taking lessons from Hana in the ways of piloting remotely by playing games with her nightly, trying to win against Hana's skills. It had never really had worked out very well, but now she could give Hana a run for her money.

The plane had recently been refueled.

Everything seemed to be in order.

She hadn't seen Amélie much that day, to her dismay and relief. Part of her wanted to hold Amélie close and not let her out of sight, but another part of her thought that… it might just be easier to detach herself some from everyone before battle. _Just in case._

 _You're starting to sound like Angela._

 _What's up with her anyway?_

 _Playing God is starting to wear her down. Do you think she's ready for this?_

 _What do you mean do_ _ **I**_ _think she's ready? You're talking to yourself._

 _Well…_ _ **do**_ _you?_

 _No. No, I think she's going to crack._

Lena took a deep breath and walked through the empty living room and the eerily empty hall into her equally empty room, closing the door behind her.

The room was still a mess from everything she and Amélie had gotten up to the night before. Cellophane and aluminum food wrappers littered the floor along with clothes that were definitely too dirty to be reused and blankets and pillows alike. The bed itself was practically stripped down to the sheets, untucked at one corner. There was a sock hanging on the top of the lampshade, dangling over both sides as if to ask, "What _were_ you doing last night? How did I get here?"

Lena didn't know the answer to that.

Waking up that morning had been a task. Dreams did nothing to her in the night other than make her want to wake. She felt Reaper's gauntlet around her neck and watched Amélie bleeding out in front of her, but there was nothing she could do as she looked into those burning eyes and the mountain of a former man. He was a harbinger of death, now. He wasn't who she remembered. He hadn't been for a very long time.

When she wasn't rising up out of sleep gasping and thrashing and screaming, she found herself under lockdown - her brain being awake enough to panic but not enough to let her limbs dissolve from lead into flesh. Her lungs felt like they did now.

Why was she _burning_ …

The floor was cool on her face.

How did she get on the floor…

"Lena?" A soft, angelic voice whispered from above her.

She didn't look up.

Everything was so dark.

They were all going to die.

None of it mattered.

"Oh, Lena…" said the voice before strong, sure hands pulled her up into a sitting position, but Lena couldn't hold herself up.

Why did it matter?

Their doc had gone off the deep end. Their team proved that they weren't cohesive.

Everything could go wrong and _would_.

"Mon Dieu, Lena…"

Her eyes burned. Her nose burned.

Amélie somehow managed to sit Lena up on the edge of the bed and help her stay upright in her pre-crying. She stroked Lena's hair and kissed her forehead and her cheeks, leaning her own forehead against Lena's and cooing soft things until Lena's sniffles died into long, steadying breaths. She leaned her head against Lena's shoulder, and the two of them sat on the edge of their nearly naked bed together, holding hands tightly but not speaking for a long time.

Lena broke the silence.

"What happens if we win?"

"I don't know, chérie." Amélie paused for a long minute. "Do you think this plan was ever about winning? Or going out in a blaze of final glory where it all began?"

"I don't know, love."

Lena had a feeling that it wasn't the first option, though.

Amélie popped off the bed and posed like a model. "What do you think of my new outfit?" She struck another pose. "Am I dashing in this couture battle regalia?" She stuck her leg out and stretched out her neck. "Am I enticing?"

Lena felt the numbness in her chest crack open like an egg that had been slam dunked into the ground as she burst into a fit of giggles, her vision tinted by tears at the corners of her eyes.

Amélie's eyes also shone through her laughter as she posed for every bit of her new suit, which was as sleek and slick as her suit with Talon, but this one covered much more of her body including her chest and arms. Over it all, she had a long "canvas" trenchcoat, which was not only bulletproof but also incredibly fashionable if you happened to be into noir films.

Lena fucking loved noir.

She laughed as her ridiculous wife-to-be struck pose after pose, laughing just as much as Lena, but both of them sounded on the brink of utter hysterics.

Lena was the first to tip, her laughs turning into loud, nasty, ugly sobs of utter hopelessness, and Amélie came to her side in an instant, crying all the same and holding on so, so tightly.

Neither knew how long they stayed locked together in this horrible embrace of impending doom, but Lena was the first to break the almost silence.

"I don't want to go," she whined, her voice a broken mess of syllables more than any understandable words.

"I don't either… But if we go…"

"We go together."

Lena nodded, looking up at Amélie, whose eyes were shining with held-back tears that hadn't fallen in their misery, but… She still smiled at Lena like Lena had personally hung the moon and stars.

"Let's get you dressed, yeah?"

* * *

Lena sat in her bench seat with the harness down around her, accommodating her accelerator, and watched the back of Hana's head as she started shifting a little more restlessly at the controls. Her hands clenched and unclenched on the controls despite autopilot being engaged, which would have meant that she had no need to fiddle with a single thing, but Lena could understand why she was antsy. There was much to be done in a very small amount of time.

The cloud bank they were in glowed with the golden shine of a late afternoon sun. Below them, the ground would be shrouded in grey-white overcast to throw shadows far and wide to the point of non-existence. Ideal fighting weather. No dark corners to hide in. No lies of the land to obscure a position.

But then again, that also meant the same thing for them - a colorfully clad group of superheroes. Just regular people with souped up suits and sometimes incredible powers bestowed upon them by forces unknown.

And sometimes, they were time traveling lesbians.

Go figure.

Lena looked back out the front of the plane, kind of wishing _she_ were the one sitting in the pilot's chair. Hana needed something she felt like she could do, though, and that was infinitely more important than Lena pitching a fit to pilot one last time.

 _One last time._

 _This isn't the end._

Everyone besides Emily was crammed into the body of the jet, sitting side by side on the benches, and Lena had a memory overwhelm her for a hot second of sitting there just about where Hana sat, sweating profusely and hoping to come home after her first mission out in the field, talking to Angela - chattering, really - to distract herself from the possibilities and potentials.

 _No, Lena_ , said the words in her mind, shrouded and overlaid with Gérard Lacroix's voice. _The end is here._

And a voice from a terrible, _terrible_ novel series-to-film adaptation - a novel series that she genuinely enjoyed over and over in her life and one of the few heavy books to make their way into her repertoire of thought - rang in her head. _Have fun with the Apocalypse._

Terrible movie, really.

Lena turned her thoughts back to herself what felt like forever ago - inexperienced and practically shaking in her boots - so long ago and almost laughed at herself now.

Now…

No one spoke on the flight to the Overwatch Swiss Headquarters.

No one even cleared their throats more than once or twice. The flight wouldn't be very long, distance wise, and flying like no one cared who saw what, they would have gotten there in probably forty-five minutes. This slow path would take nearly three hours.

They were getting closer.

Now… Lena didn't shake.

Now, Lena held onto Amélie's hand and wouldn't let go until something drove them apart from each other, whether it was enemies or necessity or overly-sweaty palms.

Lena watched everyone along those benches looking down at their feet somberly. Looking like they were all going to their own funerals. Like exhaustion and fear and stress would kill them all before they even hit the ground. Or like they all expected that something _else_ would kill them before they hit the ground.

But Lena… Lena didn't want to die.

Lena took a shaky breath and squeezed her own gloved fingers around Amélie's a little harder.

But if she had to die, there was no other crew that she would rather die beside.

She felt her leg start bouncing - her "bad" leg. The one that hurt her in the rain and that shot pains through the ball of her hip and down through her ankle like a terrible lance. She wasn't risking falling apart like she usually did.

Her mind was unusually sharp for this level of stress, but she still knew that there would be so much to handle when they got where they needed to be.

Then, her battle brain would kick in.

Then, she would let herself go to the rhythm of combat until it was over or until it was _over_.

Lena swallowed hard.

And then, time froze for a second.

Horrible, terrible pressure punched her in the back, and her eyes flew wide. She felt her mouth open in slow motion and bellow out a yell of surprise and pain. Other sounds of the same nature met her ears - other sounds of varying pitch from different mouths, but she could still pick out whose was whose. Jesse. Ana. Jack. Angela. Amélie. Junkrat. Genji. Lúcio. Mei.

Everyone else gave out several octaves of grunts.

Lena, still stuck in slow motion, watched her hands fly out in front of her with the impact of being pitched sideways and saw everyone across from her having their necks snapped back against their headrests.

 _If we hadn't been strapped in…_ She decided not to think about it. The battle was here and now.

Everything snapped into regular motion in the slow blink of an eye.

"We've been hit!" yelled Hana, jerking on the controls wildly, but Lena could tell even from her seat that she wasn't panicking. She was doing exactly what she needed to do in order for them not to crash and burn before getting close enough to drop everyone.

"No shit!" yelled Jack, struggling to pick himself up with Hana swinging the plane upward as quickly as possible, the sheer force of gravity snatching them all around like uncooked, boneless chicken wings.

Her head jerked around once they'd leveled out, and Hana's wild eyes locked onto Lena's, sending Lena into action before Hana even said anything. It wasn't panic in her eyes. It wasn't pain. It wasn't fear.

"I need you to take control, Lena!"

 _Lena_ was the one who started to panic. "Hana, no! Take us in!"

Hana leveled out the plane somewhat and started unhooking her harness to the pilot's chair. She slid out of the chair and down the still sloping floor. Guns and prepare-for-battle debris littered the floor, piling up near the exit ramp.

Hana stopped sliding by snatching the grips on Lena's harness, tears in her eyes. "Please just… just get up there for me. _Please._ "

"Hana-" Lena started.

" _I need to do this,_ " she begged, tears starting to streak down her cheeks. Not tears of fear. Tears of frustration. Need.

Lena swallowed, unsure of how to keep Hana Song on this plane.

" _I'm sorry, Athena."_

Lena set her jaw, some little pull within her guiding her hands to unfasten herself faster and loosen the harness to come off. There would be no keeping her there if she didn't want to be, and there was no sense in trying to keep her down when she needed to fly.

She grabbed Hana by the cheeks as she stood and gave her a kiss on her forehead but got a smooch full of bangs. "Go get 'em, tiger."

Hana, red-faced, grinned back with tears falling down her cheeks. "You got it, boss."

Lena blinked herself into the pilot's chair and buckled herself in as Hana kicked around the firearms to where they wouldn't fall out of the back of the plane when she gave Lena the go ahead. Lena was nearly ready to flip herself back around into the lock position to steer when Hana turned her head just enough for Lena to see her crying full scale.

"Satya? Lúcio? You coming with or are you gonna stick with these nerds?" Her voice barely trembled, but her hands were clenched at her sides, control sticks in each clutched fist.

Satya and Lúcio nodded and launched themselves out of their harnesses with mixed success. Lúcio nearly went sliding against the door but Satya caught him and steadied him.

Their parachutes were good enough equipped with stealth tech to keep Talon from blasting them out of the sky, but a giant yellow mech… not so much. They'd have to give her cover while she fell.

"Lena! On my mark!"

Lena spun around and locked the chair, feeling more in her element than she thought she would. Calm overcame her when her hands touched the controls. The panel in front of her was flashing red even though the blaring had stopped. "Hana, they're locking on!"

"Threetwoonego!"

Lena punched the exit ramp's open button and snatched the jet's nose up toward the sun. She heard Hana take two steps, screamed something that sounded like "Prepare for MEKAfall, motherfuckers!," followed by a wordless battlecry and Lúcio and Satya's mixed sounds of fear and exhilaration. A second later, Lena jammed the button again to stabilize the air pressure in the cabin and pitched to the right just in time to see a flaming ball of…. Something… flying past where the jet once was.

"What the _fuck! What the fuck!"_ hollered Jesse. "How are they locking in on us!"

Lena gritted her teeth as the engines roared.

Amélie's calm voice cut through the chaos and distressed beeping like a hot knife through butter, but her voice wasn't warm in the slightest. It was frozen. It wasn't Widowmaker, but it was damn near close.

"Talon's technology must have significantly improved under their new despot."

" _You fucking think?_ " snarled Jack.

"Everyone! Shut! The! Fuck! Up!" snapped Ana. "We're going in either way, and we're going to take care of everything! We're going to do this! We're going to do this no matter what happens!"

Lena couldn't turn around, but she banked into grey clouds as Jack started speaking. "They know we're here now, so the element of surprise is gone, but Hana'll give 'em hell for a while. We gotta get down there fast to back her up."

Angela's quiet voice matched Amélie's on the lower side of the Kelvin scale. "Everyone has a second chance, but please, _please_ try not to die. Lena, take us in, set it on auto, and drop after we do."

Lena clicked on her communicator nestled in her ear. "Roger."

A flighty little thought shot through her head - _Aren't we going to get separated?_

It didn't matter now.

She leveled out the plane, her guts tensing in a near wretch, but she wasn't quite sure why. Had it all come crashing down around her that this was real? That this was happening?

She heard buckles unfastening behind her, clicking and clattering against the harnesses' metal bars and other buckles. There wasn't any stopping this.

Jack called out. "Lena, you ready?"

"As I'll ever be," she muttered, sure that the only way he would hear her would be over the comms.

"Good enough for me," said Zarya, crackling a little over the line. "We are good to jump?"

Lena shook her head but realized that they probably couldn't see her from behind the oversized pilot's chair. "Not yet."

"Lena," grumbled Fareeha. "You have to get us-"

"Working on it, love," Lena said a little too quickly to keep the irritation from creeping in.

It was hard enough to fly in a war zone, but it was even harder when people were telling her how to do her damn job. She took a breath in through her nostrils and blew out of her mouth, straightening in her seat a little and pulling up on the controls just slightly to bring them down just below the cloud bank. Just another second…

Jack knew from the way the outside air sounded against the cabin, and he slapped the big red cabin button before Lena could even give the go-ahead. "Let's move out."

Lena heard step after step of people jumping out of the plane - no - her _family_ jumping out of a plane into what should have been certain doom. She took a final breath and set the plane to auto before clicking the unlock button on her chair and swiveling around to face the back of the plane. Angela stood there, her hair blowing around wildly in the wind.

"An-"

"Lena," she said, just loudly enough for the comm line to pick up her voice over the sound of the rushing air all around. "Be safe."

And then she fell backward out of the plane, arms outstretched like a swimmer falling into a deep pool from a diving board.

 _And she gets mad at Jesse for his melodrama._

A few seconds after Lena recovered from the sheer overwhelming aesthetic slap in the face of the angelic Angela falling out of the plane, her wings extended, Lena managed to scrape herself up, start hastily unbuckling all six of the pilot chair's buckles, and slide to the door on the plane's increasing incline. She caught the vertical handrail just in time to swing back around to see Athena take charge of the plane, her logo lighting up the windshield.

"Hey, A?" Lena started, feeling the weird butterflies of pre-combat in her stomach.

"Yes, Lena?"

She started to smile, but she felt it falter as she shuffled with her parachute tied to her back. "Keep safe, okay?"

Athena was silent. "Oh, right. You can't see me."

"Are you nodding, love?" _This_ smile, though fear ran beneath it, was genuine.

"Be safe, Lena."

Lena saluted and dove out of the back of the plane face first, the roar of air rushing past her ears hard enough to have given her an earache if she hadn't been wearing her communication headset. It was a discreet thing of wires and buds, but it was enough to dampen ambient noise and amplify the things she _needed_ to hear. It was old Overwatch tech, all things considered, but Winston had gone to great lengths to improve it in the last few weeks.

That wasn't her main concern, though. Her main concern was her parachute and how it would deploy a reflective shield around her once she got to where she could open it, but judging that would be difficult enough under non-stressful circumstances, and right now, she was a brilliant yellow-orange speck in the sky with a glowing blue beacon for target practice. She didn't want to deploy too soon and drift too slowly, but she didn't want to get close enough to be easy enough to shoot at.

She pulled when things on the ground became more and more distinct, bolts of anti-aircraft fire shooting past her like a barbaric flaming charge from a catapult.

 _Some things never change, do they?_

 _War doesn't, at least._

She took a breath, her heartbeat drowning out anything coming from her comms (as if the wind weren't a big enough problem by itself), and pulled the chute, feeling the same way she had when she'd been launched to the side by Talon's wild AA barrage.

Her whole body jerked painfully as the chute deployed. As the sudden deceleration eased up, Lena had about ten more minutes to think about how Talon's technology was advanced enough to rival and, at least partially, overcome their own. Apparently, even completely redesigning their stealth tech over the years hadn't quite been enough. The only things they hadn't been able to crack were the most recent editions to their equipment. The ones that Sombra wouldn't have gotten to have sucked from Athena's brain before she'd been caught purple-handed. Would she have passed it off to Reaper and his crew before she'd had a change of heart?

Probably.

Lena was wondering how much Sombra was enjoying flying through the air, one of the unmarked parachutes drifting toward the ground below. But the ground wasn't the pristine overcast thing that Lena had envisioned.

Hana had already set half of one training field ablaze, sending Talon agents scattering and trying to recover the best that she would let them, which wasn't very much. The sunken front half of the building looking like nothing but a sagging bank scooping up a river of black and grey smoke from Hana's rampage.

Even though the wind still buffeted Lena like it always did it jumping from an airplane, voices burbled from her earbuds much more clearly than before. Before, she'd only been able to tell that something was happening on the other end, but good fucking luck figuring out what. Now, she could hear distinct _words_ even though some of them got cut off by static or by wind gusts.

Jack's gruff voice cut through loud and clear. "Looks like me, Genji, Rein, and Zenyatta are going to end up in the same area. Western block training facility. What about everyone else?"

Ana was the first to respond to Jack's prompt. "I'm with a crew of misfits. Looks like your boyfriend, Winston, and I are going to land near Emily's… thing."

Emily crackled a little less clearly in Lena's ear, and a shiver snuck down her spine. "It's Unit One."

"Yeah, okay," Ana said, exasperation seeping into every word. "That still doesn't explain what you call it."

"Speaking of which… does Unit One have a different paint job?"

"It looks like I am going to be babysitting with Mei," Fareeha interrupted.

"Oh! Fareeha!" Lena could see Mei waving in her mind's eye.

Junkrat, presumably one of the aforementioned babies, cut in, "I wouldn't imagine another place I'd rather be than beside you, eh, Roadie?"

A grunt. _Classic Roadhog._

Bastion beeped in panic, feeling a little put off from being launched out of a plane and having someone else remotely pull his ripcord. He was going to land near Torbjörn and Fareeha's babysitting squad, which only seemed appropriate.

Lena felt her eyebrows wrinkling together. _They're mostly equipped for defense…_

Hana came in with a tinny, borderline hysterical laugh. "Me, Lúcio, and Satya are ready to catch whoever's coming down. I'm pretty sure that's Zarya."

"It _is_ me, little bun!"

"And me," grumbled Sombra.

"Oh," Hana snorted. "That's fucking _great_."

Lena pulled on one of her handles to steer her parachute toward the one closest to her and second furthest from the ground.

"Who's below me?" Lena asked, feeling a little queasy as the shapes on the ground became more and more clear. She and the next two below her would be falling between the generators and the gardens. It would probably be best to go toward the overgrown gardens for more cover, considering that the smoke and fog were starting to drift in that direction too, which would help them stay hidden but equally shroud their enemies.

"I am," Amélie responded shortly, making no bones about messing around with pleasantries.

"As am I," said Angela with much more feeling than Amélie, her voice trembling slightly.

"Should we go down into the gardens?" Lena asked, whipping her head around to try to locate the clusters of Talon agents. There were… quite a few stationed around the garden area, almost as if Reaper had expected them to drop close by and try to infiltrate the base from the broken outer rung's shell - a shell that he himself had broken years ago.

"It looks… well occupied," Amélie replied, her voice level.

That kind of composure, to Lena, felt entirely too natural to be completely Amélie. "Hey, Athena?"

There was another second before Athena responded. "Yes?"

Strain. She was doing enough as it was trying to keep tabs on everyone, record sufficient data to stream to the team, _and_ do her own thing piloting and trying to keep out of Talon's direct grasp while taking out key targets - specifically, the anti-aircraft turrets.

"Can you do the thing you do to our comm lines?"

"Sectioning?"

"Yeah. If it's not too much trouble."

Instead of another forced reply, Lena's headset - and everyone else's, she was sure - clicked over to going to a team feed with the larger channel pooling on a slightly different frequency. Athena would be monitoring that as well to push through any relevant information that the other teams needed to hear, clearing out the team lines for the general, but this way, it would be much easier to focus on each individual task at hand rather than the giant tangle that they were now all in.

Lena switched one more click over, just enough to put her directly to Amélie and cut out Angela entirely. Just for a moment.

She wasn't really sure how to say 'Hey, babe, are you dissociating the fuck out and into the scary spider lady?' so she just settled on, "Are you alright, Amélie?"

"I'm…" She sounded like she was about to say 'fine,' but she stopped. "I'm worried, Lena."

"Me too, love."

"Stay in my sight, alright?"

"I will."

"And Lena?"

"Yeah, Amélie?"

"I love you."

Lena smiled, but the grey-black smoke swallowed Amélie's chute, cutting her off from view. Angela fell next.

"I love you too, Amélie."

Lena fell into the cloud of smoke a few seconds later, and she took one last big gulp of air before the burning just under her collarbone spread into her lungs with the same irritated, slowly growing suffocation.


	64. Part Two: Black Out Days

Jack swore as he stumbled for what felt like the hundredth time in the last few minutes. He hated to admit it, but he thought he felt more than a little more out of practice than he had in his paratrooper days. That had been nearly thirty years ago, hadn't it? He swallowed, feeling his breath coming harder, even as his visor cleared out the smoke from the air he sucked in in ragged gasps. He was out of practice, out of his depth, and out of his mind in some respect. Sound and fury danced at the edges of his awareness, the echoes of his past - the heavy, monotonous thudthudthud of the antiaircraft guns melding, dreamlike, with the voices of long dead commanders screaming through the comms as he'd dropped into zones exactly like this one half the world away.

He thought he'd worked past that kind of thing, but apparently not.

His shins screamed from the way he'd hit the dirt, and he pushed himself up by his hands and forearms, his gloved fingers squeaking in the mud.

Mud? Blood and water pooling together in the dirt.

Rain. The downpour washing away the smell of death, washing away the sounds of war and pain and death as he watched a man who had only moments before been laughing about the weather try to hold in his-

Focus, Morrison. Reminisce about the good old days when you have time to think.

Rain.

That would make moving and covering tracks even harder. But even still… how was there this much smoke and fire if everything was as wet as it should have been.

It would explain the smoke, probably. The white and grey smoke of wet or green wood.

"Come in, anyone come in. Positions."

"Me, Angela, and Amélie ended up in the inner gardens," quipped a chipper, some-kind-of-British accent. But he already knew that.

"Anyone in my area?" he asked, feeling a bit annoyed. She couldn't help sounding like that, but her cheerfulness really harshed his buzz, which was already harshed anyway.

"I do suppose that we are fine, Jack," cooed Zenyatta over the line, but Jack thought he could hear the young omnic nearby. All around, though, was a cloud of smoke and ash. The smell of smoke had been the first warning. Not long after, the inferno had overtaken them, and Jack couldn't tell whether the fire or the Omnics were more-

He took another breath, feeling his visor wheeze with the strain of purifying the air, and he focused his eyes on the ephemeral walls of shifting smoke around him, standing perfectly still. Shapes began to coalesce in the clouds, shapes that would have been completely obscured if he'd just been using his eyes.

Those shapes started taking distinct forms, and for a moment his chest locked as the infiltrator units swept the area, guns raised high to tear apart the first sign of human life in the swirling mists, but no, the proportions were wrong, and the posture, and there were no rifles held in those delicate hands. No, it was Zenyatta. Just Zenyatta, who was drifting toward him in a rather relaxed way, all things considered. That just pissed Jack off more than he already was.

"Where's the rest of my team?" Jack snapped into his headset.

A large hand clapped down on his shoulder. "It's fine now, Jack! Why?" Jack felt his shoulders sag as Reinhardt's booming voice echoed a joke from long ago, but he looked up to see a massive, brilliant, genuine smile. "Because I am here!"

Still, that irritation he felt started to let go in the presence of that smile. Reinhardt was a good man.

"Genji, come in," Jack said, clapping his own hand over Reinhardt's and giving it a squeeze.

"I… might need some... help," Genji said over the radio, but everyone could hear the hoopin' and hollerin' on the other end of the line. "I can do my best, but there are still… too many."

Jack nodded, glad that everyone had been able to have a chance to memorize the old maps. Not all of them had spent much of their adult lives here. "Where are you?"

"Barracks."

"We need to make our way to the front hall anyway. We're on our way."

* * *

Lena hit the ground coughing and trying not to cry out from the thorns in her hands from her shit ass landing. Just focus. Just focus and get up and find Angela and Amélie.

Her lungs weren't so bad. In fact, she'd been one of the best sprinters she'd known in her younger days, which had really boosted her cardiovascular system. Even now, that served her well enough, being the Sonic the Hedgehog of the group and all.

It wasn't her fault she had to go fast.

Focus, Oxton. Get it together.

"Angela, come in. Amélie. Where are you?"

"Fucking overgrown hydrangeas," hissed Amélie's voice over the line, positively seething with barely contained rage.

"I'm in the rose garden," said Angela, her breath coming in hot and hard over the line.

"I'm in the roses too, Ang. Can you tell me exactly where?"

"I think I see you."

Lena remained crouched and felt the cherry pit of her stomach turn to stone. "If it isn't on the ground, it isn't me."

"Fuck!"

The one word pierced through the crackling flame that erupted from the building and gave Lena a crow-fly direction to run after Angela.

The quick brrp-brrp of gunfire chilled Lena, not knowing whether or not Angela could hold out long enough for Lena could get there. Turned out that it didn't matter.

The smoke thinned in a gust of rain-spattered wind, and Lena could see Amélie swooping in from some unseen perch, her boot connecting squarely with one of the Talon agent's temples with a thump and a crunch, putting her full weight into coming down on top of him. Angela took down another with a well aimed pistol shot, and Lena felt a bit silly thinking that the good doctor couldn't handle herself. Angela was a member of Overwatch, and there wasn't anything she couldn't do well… when it came to combat, at least.

One last Talon agent looked to be readying himself to charge when he froze and withdrew into the smoke as quickly as the fight had broken out and ended.

"Well," Lena said, smiling and punching Angela lightly on the shoulder. "That one knew he was mine and decided to bail before I really roasted him."

Angela smirked in a way that Lena hadn't seen in too long. She seemed… like she was enjoying herself for the first time in such a long time. Odd, maybe, but still a relief.

Amélie brushed herself off, wiped blood off of her lip, and spit onto the crushed skull of the corpse before her. "This is no time for games."

Lena swallowed and felt the battle jitters begin to gnaw at her again. "Uh. Right. Anyway, where do you think we should go?"

Angela sighed. "Amélie, maybe you have any more concrete ideas? All I have is half a vague one, but it's… it's stupid."

Amélie shook her head. "He will lead us on a chase, but there's no way to know where he will end up unless we follow his clues. This is his game, and he is in charge."

Lena looked back and forth between the two others, feeling a bit like she was third-wheeling it. Angela's eyes shone with brilliant determination, despite the glassy hollowness in them. Amélie's burned with rage and retribution. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered what she looked like herself. Scared and confused maybe. Not fired up and ready to kill, like the others were.

She smiled over at Angela. "Lead the way, then."

"We should… go to the High Ranking Officer Barracks."

Lena swallowed again to try to get down the growing thickness in her throat. "You don't… think he would take it back there…" She whispered, her voice feeling clogged from expanding lump in her throat.

"Yeah, I do," Angela replied with a short head nod.

"Let's move out then," Amélie agreed.

* * *

"I'VE HAD IT WITH THESE MOTHERFUCKING AGENTS IN THIS MOTHERFUCKING BASE," Hana hollered as she fired over and over and over into the spray of Talon agents. Angrily quoting a shitty ass movie while being engulfed in return fire was actually helping her get a hold on herself. It gave her something to think about.

"Hana, are you alright?" asked Satya, keeping her calm, level voice just loud enough to hear but not loud enough to completely give her away if she were in a hiding spot.

They'd all gotten a little separated in the landing, but they were all still close enough in the area to hear each other if they called out loud enough. That was the problem, though. They might have all been close enough, but the Talon agents were also in close proximity, which meant that they knew that Hana's group was disorganized at best and isolated at worst.

"I'm fucking great. How are you hanging in there?" Hana couldn't stop herself from rolling her eyes, but there was no one watching her to see it… for once.

For the first time probably ever, Hana Song was alone in her cockpit. She had communication with those outside, but ultimately, there were no prying eyes watching her tear up. Watching her flinch. Watching the color drain from her face as her fusion cannons ripped through person after person, severing their upper halves of their bodies from their lower halves, their internal organs spilling out in pools of blood clotting on the ashen ground.

Not five minutes in, and Hana was already having to come to terms with killing again. Killing people.

No, it had never been easy, but she was beginning to realize how numb she'd become to killing omnic counterparts to squelch uprisings.

People…

Satya's levelheaded voice cut through Hana's mental fog just like her boosters' light cut through the gloomy, semi-opaque haze around her. "Lúcio and I are now paired. I can send up a shield to give our position."

"No," snapped Zarya, who had pretty much been completely silent until now. Hana hadn't even heard her grunting over the line but twice, and she assumed that Zarya was busting heads together without much of a problem. "Tell me exactly what you see, and I will find you. Giving away your position is too dangerous here."

Sombra snorted. "I agree with Pink. You two aren't exactly high damage."

Hana gritted her teeth. "Two supports, a DPS, and two tanks. Is this comp weird or what?"

Genuine puzzlement came through loud and clear in Zarya's voice, "Excuse?"

Sombra, Satya, and Lúcio, though, were laughing as best they could. Sombra seemed most at ease, but there wasn't much to be done about the nervousness from the other two.

"I would like to be a tank?" Zarya continued, and Hana could practically see the question marks over her head.

A tight smile snaked onto her face like a worm eating through a piece of rotting fruit. "Zarya, you know where I am, yeah?"

"Yes! I am on my way."

Hana nodded, mostly to herself, and could see shadows shifting in the swirling mist and fog. Her cockpit glass was starting to fog a little. She wasn't sweating. Yet.

Her hands slacked a little on her joysticks as she closed her eyes, certain that her shields would hold for some time before she needed to take action, but no one was firing off shots yet.

Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out.

She tightened her grip around her controllers and ran her gloved thumbs over the buttons that controlled her exoskeleton for a few seconds before tilting her head, straining her muscles and cracking her neck in both directions.

Let's do this.

Electric blue, purple, and pink sliced through the line of shadows, and they fell instantly.

A shock of pink hair bobbed in the white smoke, and Hana was very glad she couldn't smell the seared flesh from the absolute fucking weapon of mass destruction that Zarya called her particle cannon. Swear to God she ripped that off a goddamn jet or some shit.

"Bun, I am here! Come with, yes?"

"Gotta go pick up the shitheads."

Lúcio's voice came over in a laugh. Only he could laugh so genuinely and sunshiney in this doom and gloom. "Who you callin' a shithead?"

Satya shot back, "I prefer shitlord, thank you."

Hana cracked another smile, some of the anxiety in her stomach easing up at the sight of Zarya's bulging muscles and confident, ferocious grin.

It was relatively difficult to stealth through the turned up earth and ravaged grounds in a giant yellow mech, but Hana was doing her best. Zarya didn't seem to give a fart about doing any of that and, now that she was in the fighting spirit, was yelling obscenities in Russian at the "cowards" (and many other less savory words).

Hana knew that Zarya would be the type of person to slowly warm up to a fight, but become an unstoppable force of nature once she hit her stride. It just might take a minute. Still, she was working herself up pretty well on her own.

"Hana," started Satya, her voice a whisper, her breath coming out in shaking puffs. "Please tell me that's you that's chunking around over here."

The verb "chunking" would have made Hana laugh at any other time, but she was sure that it wasn't her. She had Athena scanning for Satya and Lúcio, but they were still too far away.

"Athena, what…" Then she saw it, a dim outline in her cockpit's interactive windshield. "What the fuck is that?"

It was shaped like… like… The mostly-quelled panic in Hana's gut returned with such force that she pulled up on her joysticks, digging her exoskeleton's feet into the mud.

"Hana, what is it?"

Hana could barely breathe, much less say anything coherent.

It's a MEKA…

* * *

Ana grunted as she pushed her upper body up off of the ground, her left leg screaming out in protest. No, not protest. It was screaming like a sonofabitch being snatched in half. She tried to move and cried out instead. She knew how vital it was to her survival to keep her voice down, but the pain of it was too great.

Let me lay waste to that pitiful ragtag group calling themselves the remnants of a great organization.

Ana sighed and spared a look down at her leg.

Feet weren't supposed to point that way.

Is it too late, Gabe?

"I'm down," Ana panted into her headset.

"How down is down?" Jesse asked, and Ana had the urge to wail on him. He was a good kid, but what the hell was Jack thinking?

"Well, my fucking leg got snapped in half. I need someone to come hold it while I stab myself back to normal with my darts."

"Uh…" said Jesse. "Okay… Where are ya?"

Ana looked around herself. She'd lived at the Overwatch headquarters for so long that she knew immediately where she was. And she did not like it. "Looks like I'm stuck between the West Wing - Conference Hall B - and the outer gardens."

"So the western inner gardens?"

"Close to the front entrance, yeah."

She stifled a burning scream as she pushed herself the rest of the way up, finally allowing herself to slump against the stone of a crumbled monument. These gardens used to have beautiful rows carved out of rose bushes and hollies and hydrangeas and…

"Jack! I know you're hiding in here somewhere!" She bounced the cooing baby in the sling on her chest, calling out in a sing-song voice. "We can't do it in front of the baby!"

But she was laughing anyway.

She squealed as someone came from behind and picked her up, swinging her around carefully, familiar hands gentle for baby Fareeha. He kissed her cheek.

"Gabe?" Ana giggled, still leaning against him. "When did you show up?"

"Me?" He as/ked, setting Ana down enough to scratch his beard. "I'm always here. You and Jack sneaking** off to go shag in the gardens is just public knowledge at this point. I don't need to be heaY7/d of security to figure that one out. I just decided to come and join…" He paused, still grinning like the Cheshire cat. "Or I can take sweet baby Fareeha off your hands."

Ana kissed him and untied the sling. "Be careful with her, Gabe."

A hand on her shoulder.

Her arm snapped up without her actively willing it, ready to pull the trigger on a sleep dart, but she regained her senses enough not to incapacitate Jesse for the next hour. "Fucking hell, Jesse, you scared me."

Jesse's eyes were dark and shining, but in a way that showed Ana he knew too much to be fooled by the simple I-almost-killed-you-because-you-startled-me routine. The way he was looking at her… He knew what someone suffering from flashbacks looked like. He wasn't pitying her, which would have only encouraged her to help him take a nap. No, he was empathizing. Sympathizing.

"Come on. Let's get this set, yeah?" He smiled at her, and though it wasn't genuine, it did help knock some of the weird-ass tension starting between them. "I even promise that you can punch me as much as you want if it'll help. Just…. Y'know, patch me up if you do."

Ana watched as the modern day vaquero knelt down beside her leg - the whole thing was sitting cattywampus now instead of just her foot, and she winced at the sight of it. It didn't hurt like she thought it would. She wasn't on the verge of passing out or anything, but there was a snowpea sized lump burning just under her collarbone.

That same burning matched her leg. Her broken, mangled leg. The leg Jesse McCree was about to set.

"Do you want me to count or surprise you?"

"I want you to fucking do it."

Jesse looked hard at her for only the briefest moment before saying, "Okay."

The last sound wasn't even out of his mouth before he wrenched her leg around with a horrific crunch and for a moment all she could do was wonder whether it was the feeling or the pain that made the sudden nausea swell within her churning gut.

That didn't last.

The cracking sound had barely begun to fade from her ears when the numbness of shock exploded into a terrible blossom of bloody agony that spread over her whole body, ravaging her, and Ana screamed. It wasn't a normal scream. The scream ripped at her throat the way her shards of splintered bone lacerated her muscles. She thought blood would fly from her lips, as if she'd been cut in half, mingling with the rest of the obscenities that she threw in Jesse's face along with the insults and rage that he had broken the other bone in her lower leg. In the back of her mind, she knew that she couldn't do anything about it and that it would have had to be done in order to properly set the bone so she wouldn't have a permanent limp, but fuck, that was unpleasant. Her eyes watered and snot ran down her nose like someone had turned a hose on full blast in both nostrils.

"My bag," she panted, the air stolen from her raw and ragged lungs. "You have to…" Her vision started turning black at the edges and she shook her head hard enough to give herself a headache. "Three."

"Three darts?"

His voice sounded… distant. Clouded. She tried to say it again, but she was quickly losing consciousness.

"Where, Ana?"

"Leg," was all she could manage, feeling her breaths coming deeper and carrying her into sleep.

"Your… wh-what the fuck? What the fuck!"

Her body jostled and the burning coursed through her. The burning and the flames in her veins feeling more and more like her body was a giant, itchy scab. She wanted to scratch so badly, but she couldn't even move her fingers anymore. The burning cooled with another lacerating pain in her leg. And another. And another.

She still couldn't move.

But the jitters started almost instantaneously. Her eyelids became less heavy, and her body started fidgeting, starting with her fingers. She could open her eyes now, but her vision still wasn't the sharpest in the pain haze. At best, she could focus for a few seconds, but Jesse's face would go from too sharp and detailed to blobs of color and nothing else.

She knew that this part would wear off in a few minutes, but she didn't know if she had a few minutes to spare.

"Hey, Emmy, we might need some cover here." And for the first time, possibly since Ana started working close to Jesse, she noticed that his voice was shaking. "Ana's kinda… not doin' so hot. Winston, you too, if you can."

She didn't know how much time passed as she blearily looked around, seeing Gabriel Reyes's shadow in every turn of the swirling plumes of gagging smoke, but every time her eyes would focus, he would be gone like the apparition that he was. That he'd been for so long.

Sharp metal ka-chunk ka-chunk sounds echoed around them and a garishly purple and green colored mech waddled its way onto the scene.

"Oh my god," Ana breathed, laughing a little despite her anxious grogginess. The laugh caught in a dry cough that strained her throat after her screaming fit. "Hana Song, did you paint Emily's mech?"

There was silence for a time.

"What if I did?" Her voice wasn't as chipper and happy and sarcastic as Ana would have liked to hear, considering how much trouble she was giving everyone by being in the field only half cocked.

"You fucking weeaboo," Ana laugh-coughed.

But that got a laugh out of Hana, so it was well worth the effort.

Ana shook her head, feeling some of her senses coming back to her more readily. The heat of the flame was no longer licking at her insides nor her face, and her eyesight had returned without the bizarre strobing of clarity to vague modern art blobs.

"We have to get moving."

Jesse blinked, and Ana realized that she'd been squeezing his hand the whole time. Good thing those were his robotic fingers. "Ana, are you sure?"

She moved the broken leg, which smarted real good, and she rolled her eyes. It was on its way to being fully functional again, and with that many drugs in her system, she wasn't going to be feeling anything in a few minutes, but even now, there was something different about the way she could feel her bones knitting together. Burning. So much burning.

"Gotta splint it. Quick, get something together."

Winston materialized out of the cloying smoke, holding two pieces of fairly straight wood, and Ana felt her face twitch into a brief smile at an old cartoon she once saw in an anthology. No, not gorillas in the mist. We're a bunch of chickens out here, cowering in fear. Chickens in the mist.

In a matter of minutes, they'd slapped together Ana's leg enough for her to stand, and she grunted, not at the work that others had done but at her own stupidity for landing so wrong and nearly jeopardizing their branch.

They hadn't been attacked by Talon's forces, but she didn't rightly know why.

"There was a covey of Talon agents headed your way but…" Winston smiled his wicked, pointy smile and pushed up his glasses. "I took care of them."

That explains it. You have a massive talking gorilla hurdling at you through less than optimal visual conditions with a giant electricity gun. I wouldn't want to go head to head with him either.

"Jack, come in."

Silence.

"Jack."

Silence.

Ana's heart squeezed despite the numbness of drugs slipping into her system. She started to ask again, but she didn't need to.

"Little busy," Jack snapped.

Rapid fire came from over the comm.

Ana rolled her eyes, tottering a little and wincing when she put too much pressure on her bad leg. She didn't let it rest, so she was going to have a limp despite how many darts she'd used. If I drink the slime in my biotic grenade, would it heal faster?

Best not to try and end up dead.

Winston shuffled next to Jesse, who had his arms crossed and looked incredibly uncomfortable. Even Emily's mech - goddamn travesty that it was - somehow looked uneasy.

They wanted her to lead. She said she'd never do it again, but so had Jack, so she just sighed and waved to her unlikely group. "Let's go. We have to sweep the area. Then, we can try to infiltrate the front gates with Jack's group. The fewer agents we have to deal with later the better."

* * *

Athena looked down at the scene before her thanks to the ship's extra capabilities that had been installed specifically for her to pilot the plane the best. If she could have sighed, she would have. Her old home - her first real home - was in ruin and flame. It looked like the day that Overwatch had died for the first time before Winston had brought it back to life.

There was fire.

Lots of fire.

Black ants, Talon's empire, crawled over this pile of dirt and dust and smoke and ruin, and as she watched the destruction below, she did not feel detached from it. She was, in fact, so far from detached. She was monitoring all of her teammates - all of her family - as closely as she could manage without completely abandoning the plane's control. She pulled at the mechs - both Hana's and Emily's - to help them steer clear of fire that they couldn't see coming. Hana was running with a massive difficulty. She was now face to face with another mech exactly like hers. Well… Not exactly.

Athena went through her memory, searching for explanations, but all she could do was piece together that Sombra had sold the intelligence of old models to intentionally bone over Talon. Reyes - no, Reaper - must have known that even though the Overwatch crew was outnumbered, his team would need everything in their arsenal and then some to avoid getting completely massacred. That meant stealing information and technology. That meant torching the headquarters before they arrived. That meant making the terrain inhospitable by upturning the soil with explosions and installing anti-aircraft turrets.

She watched as her family spread out over the massive compound and some kind of fear struck her as she noticed that Amélie, Angela, and Lena all seemed to be the furthest from the rest of the groups. But her attention was again drawn to another detail that only she could see and understand.

"Hana," she said, trying to remain calm as a faint blue barrier shimmered in the evening fire and light. The barrier stretched like shrink wrap over the buildings themselves - all save for the Front Hall, which made more than enough sense. The Front Hall had never been protected by the barrier system that protected the rest of the central complex.

"What is it, A?"

Athena was expecting Hana's voice to hold some fear from facing down something so similar to herself, but no. There was only faint amusement and complete determination.

"You're close to the generator field right?"

"You can see better than we can."

Smug asshole. I love her.

"You're going to need to take out the gennies holding up the shield."

"What do you mean take them out? Where are they?"

Everything around Athena's head started flashing red, and she reached out with her mind - she envisioned a hand reaching out to swipe the urgency toward her. It was something that she hadn't done until Zenyatta had begun visiting her. It just made talking more comfortable.

Lena and crew were getting into trouble very quickly while they were very unaware. This wasn't something they could handle on their own. "Hana, you… ask Sombra. I have to-"

"Go. I have one big ass motherfucker to take down anyway."

Athena didn't have to answer before the line went out.

Something swelled in her circuits. She'd been stuck for so much time unable to help anyone. Unable to do anything other than give information. Other than intangible things that only tangentially helped. Now, she could make a significant difference. She could take out a whole squad after some of the most strategically vulnerable of the crew. Of her family.

* * *

Hana hunkered down, hands on her control sticks and took long breaths. No fucking poser is going to one-up me on this play. Never again. No one gets to best me. No one.

For a few long moments, there was nothing but silence as the two mech pilots stared each other down. Smoke rolled through between the dull metal thing that so desperately tried to be what she was, casting it partway into silhouette. Neither wanted to make the first move.

Hana's mind, though, was nowhere near as still as her mind as she took in what information she could about her opponent. The other Meka. The base was factory issue. A Mass Production version of her more customized vehicle. She could tell by the ways the MP unit's joints were armored, the glass thick and opaque, the an extra barrel on each fusion cannon, that Talon had iterated, had tried to improve upon the original.

And sure, maybe the machine itself would be harder to bring down, it's guns a little more powerful. But all the firepower in the world was useless without a pilot. They had someone culled from their ranks, no doubt the best that they could dig up.

But they weren't her.

No, no one could be her. No one could keep her down.

She patted the console and readjusted her grip, silently asking her mech, Are you with me, baby?

There was nothing that could stand in her way now.

Why?

"Because I'm Hana fucking Song. I am . I am a hero, and you're going down."

Without giving the other a moment's warning, she jammed her thumbs down on her boosters and threw herself forward, leaning into it with a grin, bracing her body for impact. She could see the shadow of the man in the cockpit across from her reach up to flip a switch on the cockpit's roof. The mech spread it's legs slightly and hunkered down, lowering its center of balance, and a ring of spikes shot down from the mech's legs to anchor it in the concrete.

That wouldn't save them, though. She, after giving him a very stern talking to, had requested that Torb help her out with buffing the armor in her mech, which he did under strict supervision so he wouldn't mega juice any explosions without her knowledge. The armor, though, would prove to be very useful. OP, even.

Hana braced herself.

As the two mechs collided, Hana grunted at the force of the impact, lurching forward only to be painfully caught by her restraints. The glass of her cockpit squealed against his, and through the smoky glass she could see him coolly taking hold of his controls. She grimaced and pressed her joysticks forward, hard. Her Meka strained and pushed, trying to break the bigger mech's defensive stance, but the thing didn't budge.

The MP ducked lower, and the spikes retracted out of the ground. An opening. She grinned, ready to press the attack, but before she could execute, the MP swung one of its heavy, armor plated cannons in a brutal uppercut, metal screaming on metal as she found her Meka staggering backward. "Shit!" She grunted, battling with the controls, but then there was another crash, and another.

Something cracked and hissed below her, and a red warning light went off. He'd severed something. The balancing mechanisms? Her mech was beginning to lean to the right.

There was a roar of sound that resolved into heavy repeated gunfire as the MP's fusion cannons went off at point blank range. She grunted, mind racing. Her armor would hold up against this kind of barrage, but at this range it wouldn't hold for long. She needed enough distance to bring up her defensive matrix.

She took a step back, but the other pilot seemed to know exactly what she was thinking, and followed her. Another step, then another, him following her in this bizarre ballet as her armor buckled. Armor integrity was failing.

She only had a few moments left, so she changed tactics.

She hit the boosts again.

This time, the MP didn't have time to lock itself into the floor, and it very nearly lost its balance as her mech crashed once more into its heavy frame. "Eat this!" She screamed, flicking off the safeties and unloading her own cannons. But where the MP pilot had fired at point blank into her center of mass, aiming to dismantle her, she had a different idea.

Take out the legs.

The MP was already off balance as she poured repeated fire into the knee joint on its left side, putting nearly all of it's weight onto that leg. There was a groaning sound, then a peal of tearing metal as the armor disintegrated. The MP staggered back, throwing out another swing of a cannon to dissuade her, but she'd already leapt back and out of the arc of the club.

He'd made a fatal mistake.

Before he could get his guns back into place, she activated her boosters a third and final time, using a fusion cannon as a makeshift lance. The MP tried very hard to dodge, but her strike was true, and the knee joint shattered.

She saw him try to correct, to catch himself, but the damage was done, and her inertia was too great. He toppled to the floor.

Hana wasn't done, though. Not by a long shot. She pulled hard on the joysticks, steering her boost straight up ten feet into the air, then killing the thrust. There was a moment where she seemed to hang in the air the way a cartoon character who hadn't realized she'd left solid ground might of, and her stomach dropped as a ton of solid metal plummeted through the air like a meteor.

For the first time, her opponent spoke, his voice broadcasted through a speaker somewhere on the outside of the mech. "Please, don't-!"

That was all he had time for before she crashed down onto him with a noise like a nuclear bomb. His mech, caught between the proverbial rock and hard place, couldn't bear the force of the impact, and spiderwebs spread across his cockpit.

Her mech stood atop his, one foot on the ground, the other holding him down, and brought her cannon down like a club. This time, the cockpit shattered, and she saw… just a guy, his face bloody and pale, his hands shaking on the no longer functional joysticks.

Just a guy.

She lowered her cannons, breathing hard. He was out of commission, right? He didn't need to die. He was an enemy combatant, but he was at her mercy. She'd kill in a fight, but not in cold blood.

He coughed once, twice, and glared up at her.

She didn't need to-

But then there was a gun in his hands, even though she hadn't seen him pull it out, and out of sheer instinct she poured cannonfire into the shattered cockpit, firing long after the man had been reduced to a pile of viscera.

Her breath came in ragged gasps as she released the triggers, and for a moment, her mind was almost completely blank.

White fuzz splatterpainted with red and crunching and the sound of her guns. The quick shine of a barrel that- had it even been powerful enough to chip the paint on her mech? But high caliber or not, he'd had a gun. That meant he was still a threat to her teammates even if he wasn't a threat to her.

Get back on track, Song.

The generators. Right. Get back to the generators.

"Sombra, hey, so… I might need some help here, seeing as how you're the only one of us that intimately knows all the shit like this, yeah?" She was still panting a little, out of breath from holding it too much and yelling a whole lot.

"Shit like what?" she asked without the slightest hint of smugness.

"You know. What wires to pull." Hana wiped sweat from her brow and fanned herself. She'd worked up a sweat in the anticipation and excitement of it all.

Maybe excitement wasn't the right word.

Hana could see Sombra very clearly rolling her eyes but with her whole body in the motion of it.

"Yeah, just leave it to me. Whatever."

They started walking away from the broken hull of the MP unit and it's shattered contents - the bloodied ground soaked through and sounding with every soft squidging noise coming up from Hana's mech's feet. She couldn't look down because of the MEKA's girth, and she was glad enough. Every other thing around them looked like a fucking Tarantino film.

She wasn't jealous of everyone else on foot.

Zarya seemed completely unphased by it all, which surprised Hana the least. Sombra picked over the rubble and spray of bodies from previous engagement with a look of disdain on her face that Hana hadn't even imagined she was capable of. To her surprise, neither Lúcio nor Satya seemed particularly surprised by any of the fallout, though Satya seemed more disturbed than Lúcio did, which was not surprising. Lúcio had a stomach for battle that Hana hadn't realized until she'd seen the situation first-hand in Brazil. He'd watched his friends die, too. Satya, on the other hand, was a little more… empathetic without restraint. Others' pain pained her.

Focus, Hana. You can admire your partners when you get to a safe zone.

Hey, idiot, remember that time Jack called Lúcio Beyoncé with a gun?

Sombra, did it, too.

Yeah, but she's less funny about it because she probably wants to eat your heart out or some shit like that.

Tru...

How did she know she was using the abbreviated form for "true" in her own head? She didn't know or care. It just gave her something to think about that wasn't explicitly the potential for more blood and gore. She was a soldier. She should be past this.

"A, patch me to Jackie, would ya?"

A static click in her ear. Athena didn't respond. That made Hana worry.

"What is it, Hana?" He didn't sound irritated. He sounded… Tired.

"Maybe… Maybe you were right about war not being a game, you know?" Her voice shook, and she was definitely glad no one else could hear her.

"Hana… I was angry when I said that." An apology?

"Yeah, well… I don't think I'm so good at this soldier stuff," she rolled a shoulder with a weak laugh like he could see her. Like she had an audience she still had to perform to.

"Hana, you're a fine soldier. What's all this?" No irritation, not even the facade of a grumpy old man.

"I… I'm having trouble dealing with… all of this."

A long pause.

She cursed herself for saying it that way.

"I mean… I keep… thinking about… they have families too. They're just doing what they're told, right? Who are we to end their lives?"

"Hana, get ahold of yourself. You know they made a decision when they accepted Reyes and his propaganda. They've had plenty of chances to get out. That's what he does." The line went quiet in the wake of those words for a beat too long to be comfortable. "We'll have warm fuzzies later about the terrors of war and flashbacks and all that good PTSD shit, but we've got company."

Hana nodded, mostly to herself. "Go get 'em, gramps."

"Love you too, kiddo."

She huffed out a long breath. She hadn't known that about Reyes. At most, she assumed that he would get them in and keep them against their will like some cartoon villain, but she guessed that that wasn't the most realistic way of keeping loyal customers. No, they would have to choose his way. They would have to choose this violence, and she would have to react.

The squad of them waddled every closer to the fenced in area that would have been the primary generator system, but Sombra stopped short a good dozen meters away, pulled out her great purple screens before her, and started tapping away at them.

"Carajo!" Sombra hissed, losing her cool and sending her prosthetics glowing. She radiated with a pulsing purple light that shone brilliantly in her irritation. It died like a brief flare, whose life had been cut short. "No, no. I can fix this."

"Wh…" Satya couldn't even finish and instead she trailed off after seeing the broken ruins of the main building's generators. The fence had been torn in by something only slightly bigger than Hana's mech.

"I can fix this," Sombra muttered again, her eyes going over every single part of the generators with such intensity that they couldn't have been without a cybernetic enhancement. But of course, no one thought those blue beauties were organic…

"Satya, can you help her?"

Satya blinked and put away her beam hell gun to put a thoughtful hand to her chin. "Perhaps."

Hana nodded. "Then, help her." She then gestured to herself, Zarya, and Lu. Sombra, what do we need to do?"

Sombra waved a dismissive hand toward the "fenced" in generators. "These don't hold up the shields anyway, but they do provide power to the main building, which I do feel like you'll need. The shields are held up by the field out there." She pointed into the not-too-far distance at the strip of black glass solar panels(… solar panels? No… they were… something else…) that lined the grass between two strips of concrete airfield.

Hana's mouth fell open at the hundreds of black, shiny rectangles glinting in the dancing fire and smoke all around. "We have to take all those out?"

Sombra waved them off again, already deeply absorbed in her work.

Hana swung her mech toward Zarya and Lúcio with a huff. "Better get started, I guess."

* * *

Jack drove his rifle butt down on the skull of a man who was long since dead, but he couldn't stop himself from making triple extra sure that the guy wouldn't get a second wind somehow and come up shooting. His gestures were too much for his present company, but even Zenyatta was deeply engaged, the metallic shing from each metal ball flying through the air on what was probably some kind of robot magic.

Genji was zipping past Jack again, his sword in hand, and Jack could have sworn that he saw some green thing around his sword like… a dragon? No… He shook his head but realized that the more he thought he knew, the more he realized that he was just a young babe in the woods in this wide world.

He swung up the bloody butt of his rifle and shot out just in front of the boy who was racing toward Reinhardt, whose hammer was held at the ready. The boy's head disconnected from his body and went flying in a bloody mess like some unholy, exploding baseball. Between Jack's own shot and Reinhardt's star batter's swing, there was no way that kid could have made it out alive.

Kid.

These were just kids.

He's doing this to wear you down, and you know it. This is one of the oldest tricks in the book for him. One of the oldest tricks period. He'll use kids to get your guard down. Stay frosty.

The wave of boys died out without even a trickle.

Floodgates then nothing.

He huffed out a long breath through his nose and rolled his neck. "We should meet up with Ana's team."

Everyone gave grunts and nods of assent, but that didn't help Jack's anxiousness. He would probably feel a little better getting back together with more of his team… right? There was strength in numbers, and with all these forces crawling around like bullet ants, strength was exactly what they could use more of.

Reinhardt took the lead, walking with a bit of a crouch in his step despite his enormous size, which was a dead giveaway on top of the shiny metal armor that he wore that tossed light around like some kind of show. Really, they all looked like some bizarre carnival parading around in a hellfire landscape. A shitshow, even.

Focus, old man. Isn't that what Hana would say?

"We are not far from the entrance of the Front Office. Should we wait on Ana's team or should we push forward and find them?"

Jack rolled a shoulder at Genji. "Would you mind scouting ahead?"

Just before he took off, though, Jack raised a hand and eyeballed the glowing xbox of a man then shook his head. "You know what… Go ahead. Try not to… I don't know. I was gonna tell you not to get spotted, but we're all kinda shit at that."

He couldn't see Genji's face, but he knew the kid was smiling underneath his faceplate. Jack patted him on the shoulder in a nice gesture and turned his attention back to Zenyatta and Reinhardt.

"Come on, you two. Let's get in that Front Office and clear it out."

But there wasn't much to clear.

The building, which had been partially reduced to rubble by the force of the explosion that had become the final nail in Overwatch's coffin, lay in the hands of a few Talon agents that looked like they had only just learned to tie their shoes, much less mastered the ultra-expensive weapons in their hands. It was… too easy. The three of them sliced through the small force like a hot knife through butter, just with a lot more screaming from the butter.

Zenyatta, to Jack's surprise, was not objecting to this display, but then again, Jack had to remember that he was determined to fight for what would ultimately be the right thing. That was clear by the scratches and scarred metal of his face.

His ankles and knees were reinforced by the injections of long ago projects, but they still creaked with the strain of stumbling over where the great glass front doors used to be. Jack would have thought that the glass from the front building would be completely gone from the explosion's force, but no. There was still an entire wall of glass smudged by smoke smears and swirls with patterns of translucence mottling the mostly opaque finish. The second floor's overhang sagged in the middle of the overhang and dipped just low enough for exposed red iron steel cantilever beams to kiss the cracked, broken, and destroyed marble floor of the first level. Dust floated and swirled around in the absence of smoke and ash as if trying to make up for the void in the mostly destroyed building. The roof dripped the rain water from the last night's storm onto the second floor which poured out in a stream onto the first floor, pooling in puddles where the marble floor was simply gone in favor for the molded, rotting subfloor.

He took another look around, still tense enough to swipe up his rifle if need be, but nothing so much as stirred other than the concrete dust that never settled. His visor picked up on little bugs that scurried around, looking for food and water, no doubt.

Bugs infesting the rotten hole and filling the shell of his former home.

The Front Office had essentially been a visitor's center of sorts, allowing people to flock there for tours and look in on what they thought were the beginnings of meetings, which were mostly staged though some were real. That's what the second floor had been. Sky bridges to the other buildings were accessible by access through the second floor's false walls and partitions - a guessing game of hide-the-doorway-ft.-shields so hapless shmoes and no snooping eyes could get through without proper access. This building saw hundreds of thousands of adoring fans a day.

He thought back to how accepting everyone had been of Overwatch's fall, though. Maybe not so adoring, after all.

He spotted something glinting in the corner of his visor and walked cautiously over to it.

A monitor.

One of the many that had had consoles built around them where a visitor could poke buttons and see the history of Overwatch and watch all of their promotional videos - plenty with his own face and Lena's, for sure. There were holograms too, but the power was down. Nothing in this mausoleum could-

A deep hum cut off his thoughts, and the blank, cracked monitor before him blinked a few times with the image of… No… This was another hallucination.

But everything started blaring at once - music blasted from unseen speakers. Six different voices began speaking all at once from various projectors which had started up without any warning. The monitor in front of him showed him a picture that only he and Ana and Gabe knew about… No. No no no no…

"This will give away our position!" he raged, snapping around. "Cut the shit!"

A smug voice over the comm link interrupted his fuming and fear. "Oh come on, tell me you're more fun than Gabriel. Of course they know where you are. Besides, you're not going to get anything done unless I beef up the power again."

He couldn't say anything to Sombra.

She was right.

They couldn't get the bridges or the elevators working without the generators running, which would mean that they couldn't explore anything with Ana having a broken leg, even if she had drugged herself to oblivion trying to fix it.

"Wow, Jackie, what happened to us? We used to be hot, right?"

Speak of the devil.

Ana's slurred words made him smile, but when he turned to her with one of her arms draped over Jesse's shoulders as he hunkered down to fit her height, he saw how busted up they all were, Genji included.

"What the fuck happened to y'all?"

"Skirmish," Jesse drawled, chewing on the butt of his cigar.

Jack shook his head, not realizing how much time his crew must have spent looking at the ruins of his former home.

"Are we all good now?"

"Good is a strong word, helo," Ana grumbled, shifting her weight off of Jesse and onto one of the monitors, slipping a mashing a button that changed narrators.

It was Jack.

"What the fuck am I hearing?" Hana asked over the comms, which had just been filled with her profanities in six languages. Doesn't she only know three?

Jack switched her off his direct line with growing irritation. He watched a much younger version of himself spouting propaganda like any organizational figurehead would be doing. And he hated that younger version of himself with such a passion for a moment that he understood why Overwatch had fallen out of the public's favor. A propaganda spouting killing machine. That's what it looked like from the outside.

The hazy blue glitched out over and over, his younger voice distorting from things inside the machinery keeping it going probably being broken beyond repair.

"We keep the world safe from threats. We do our best with our team of highly qualified individuals that show outstanding capability. Nothing will stop us from keeping everyone safe." There was some other jumble of words that got lost in the fuzz.

"Why have we stopped?" asked Genji, getting fidgety.

Winston cleared his throat and pushed down on a button on a display. "We have no access to the rest of the complex until Hana, Aleksandra, and Lúcio turn off the generators keeping up the shields to the rest."

The button he pushed made another hologram appear - a much younger, incredibly handsome, muscular, dark skinned man appeared, laughing. "Are you sure you want me to be doing this?"

Another voice responded. "We're recording!"

The man waved a dismissive hand with a wide, appealing smile. "Yeah, yeah, don't edit this out. This is what makes us personable, right folks?" A pause. But his face turned serious. "We face threats every single day of our lives, and we at Overwatch do everything we can to keep people like you safe, but that doesn't mean we can all do it on our own. Just look at me! We're just people too, and with your help, we know we can be so much greater. Don't forget. Even though this is the end of your tour, the world could always use more heroes."

Jack felt the hair on his arms stand on end under his jacket as he watched the man he used to love talk with such a serious face though his eyes were clearly glittering with laughter and mirth. He looked so… alive in that recording.

The image went out with a thunderous gunshot, and after Jack recovered himself, turned to find Jesse with a hard expression, his arm extended, gun still in hand. "We don't need to see that right now," he said, barely just above a whisper.

The hologram next to the one Jesse destroyed clicked on with a laughing and jovial Reyes. "Are you sure you want me to be doing this?"

The one beside that one clicked on, the blueish hue tinting the hologram turning slightly purple. "Are you sure you want me to be doing this?"

Jack swallowed and tightened his grip on his weapon. This was… fucky.

Everyone else started squeezing in closer together. He noticed that Ana bumped up behind him, and he knew that she had her gun drunkenly sweeping the area.

Another hologram blinked on, and all the monitors followed suit.

"Are you sure you want me to be doing this?"

"Stay alert. He's trying to mess with your head," Jack said, trying to bolster everyone around him, but his confidence in himself was beginning to wane. "He's not even here."

"Are you sure about that, Jack?" asked a monitor that he couldn't identify.

Winston wasn't about to spare the man any longer, though, and jumped across with his boosters and tesla cannon, destroying every glass thing that wasn't supporting a structure, and Jack had to admit that he was, in part, impressed with the big guy. No one needed to tell him to cut it all off. He just decided he'd had enough of that and moved on.

"Cap'n Jack?" asked Hana's breathless and supremely irritated voice over the general line.

"What is it, squirt?" He knew that'd get her goat, and sure enough, it did.

"Fuck off, gramps." A pause. "Did you know there was a fucking button to turn off the shield generators?" Her tone was accusatory.

"Did you not?"

He could hear her winding up as she spoke. "I just spent the last-"

"Company!" yelled Aleksandra, nearly blowing out any eardrum he had left.

"-MOTHER FUCKING TWENTY MINUTES-" Lots of shooting and angry growls. "-DESTROYING ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FUCKING SIX SHIELD PLATES-" Swearing in Korean. "-BECAUSE SOMEONE FAILED TO TELL ME-"

He couldn't help smiling to himself. Sometimes the answer wasn't to shoot first and ask questions later, but Hana would learn that over time. He guessed that now wasn't the prime time for her to learn that lesson, but if he'd known she needed help, then he would have been the first to give it.

Another kind of hum - a kind that he hadn't even really realized was droning softly on and a kind different from the lights above and the spurting of broken monitors - cut off without warning.

"The rest of the block is a-go."

Sombra's voice chattered over the line again. "Listen here, the power to the rest of the building isn't fixed yet."

Satya chimed in. "We're working on restoring those so you can get around a little easier. The power to the Front Office was easiest to fix, but we should be done with those soon. The elevators and sky bridges to get to the wings should be working, though. We'll have the lights on in no time."

Surprisingly chatty for someone who was usually so quiet and willing to watch from the sidelines.

"Let's move out," Jack agreed. "Jesse, help me get Ana up and moving."

"No need," said Reinhardt, already scooping up his lady in one arm. "I will help her move around and settle her in once we're sure where Gabriel is."

Jack nodded and finally gave some attention to Emily's mech, his jaw dropping a little. "Is that an Evangelion?"

Hana cackled over the line.

* * *

"The Babysitting Squad is quite a good name, Fareeha," said Mei, giggling a bit and turning the dial on her ice gun to reload. She awkwardly kicked over an ice sculpture that used to be a person and laughed. "It looks like we're doing more damage than they are!"

Fareeha snorted but didn't laugh like Mei. She didn't rightly know how Mei was staying so positive about this whole experience, considering that she was the one who disdained bloodshed the most. Fareeha, on the other hand, didn't mind as long as it was for the right goal.

Mei hadn't been paying too much attention to what the others had been doing, but Fareeha made it her business as this squad's captain to tally a body count for each individual. At this rate, everyone on their team was a terrifying butcher, and no one deserved to be underestimated.

"Torb," Fareeha started. "Do you think you can disable that AA turret?"

"Better yet," he chuckled, and Fareeha felt the skin on the back of her neck start trying to crawl away. "I'll rewire it to self destruct if anyone tries to use it, yeah?"

"Uh…" She looked down at the scene below her, drifting down slowly. A mob of Talon worms were coming after them. "Sounds great. We should get moving to the next."

Three turrets to take down in the airfield. This was the second that they'd destroyed.

Fareeha decided it best to secure an extraction point and defend it while everyone else hunted down this single man in an ocean of mostly capable, if not green, soldiers. Her job would seem unimportant to most, she knew, but she decided other people's opinions mattered less than her team's likelihood of survival.

She switched to her private line as she landed and gestured for everyone to follow her, taking to the skies again and leading them toward the last manned turret.

She felt her own voice shaking as she spoke, trying not to think of the worst. She hadn't heard from Lena's team one bit since they landed. "Angela, are you there?"

A long bout of silence then, "I read you, Fareeha."

Fareeha huffed out a breath. "Are you safe?"

Angela's harsh laughter was not what Fareeha wanted to remember being Angela's last moment. "I'm fantastic. Killing again. You know. The stuff I like to do."

"Angela…" Her heart squeezed for her fiance. Fareeha knew that Angela didn't want to do this any more than anyone else, but Fareeha also knew that this would probably be harder on her than anyone else, too. "It's going to be okay. Don't let me lose you, alright?"

Angela went quiet for a moment. "I promise I'm not going anywhere." A pause. "LENA, I SWEAR TO GOD…" And she started chattering in Swiss-German. Ah, Angela. An angel on earth.

It was only a short time before all the turrets had been rigged, secured, or destroyed, and the large-ish group waddled their way through the debris and craters to worm their way in the smaller of two hangars directly off the airfield. They'd passed and assisted Hana, Zarya, and Lúcio on the way, getting patched up from scrapes and bruises from Lúcio's magic fucking gun and the power of tunes, and left the three of them to rejoin Sombra and Satya at the primary generator outlet.

Fareeha sighed to herself. No, her job was not glorious and may not even save them all. It wasn't even that helpful like everyone else. It was a last ditch effort to save themselves and Athena if they could, but… If there were survivors… They would need to be able to get away.

She landed in a trot, being the last to slip through the doors, and she and Mako rolled the wide doors of the hangar closed while Junkrat and Bastion barred those doors. That's when Junkrat, Torb, and Bastion decided to set up what was essentially the biggest trap Fareeha had ever seen. One push on those doors and bombs would flow out like a bursting dam. She started to wonder of that was the best course of action since they wouldn't have a door anymore if he succeeded in his preparations.

"Oh come on! Explodey things never hurt nobody." He tried to emphasize his point by gesturing firmly at a detonator, and Mei rolled her eyes and stamped off away from Junkrat and his general singed scent.

Fareeha pushed his flesh arm down gently. "Maybe… a concussion mine would be better?"

The light went out of his eyes for a minute and then burned twice as bright. "You're right! You're right! Listen to that Roadie! She's right! She lets me do things! She's smart, Roadie!"

Mako just shook his head, chains jangling. "regret."

Fareeha sighed and walked over to the large crates in the hangar, leaning against one and attempting to cover the "WARNING: EXPLOSIVES" label on the side. The last thing she needed was for Junkrat to forget that this was the escape plan. Not the explosion plan.

Fareeha slid down the side of the crate, resonating with Mako's one word a little too much, when Mei leaped atop the creaky thing and smiled down at her with her beaming smile. Snowball chirruped happily on her back.

"What is it, friend?" Mei pushed up her glasses with a little mouth gesture that was all her own.

"I'm worried about Angela," Fareeha replied honestly.

Mei only nodded and rubbed at the place where Fareeha was also burning in her own chest. Whatever Angela had done to them hurt.

In more ways than one.

"I know that Angela is very afraid of what might happen given that we were given a part of Reyes's DNA in order to survive if we encounter a mortal wound, but I do not know her intentions in giving it to all of us so early." Her eyes were distant, probably thinking about her friends. "Maybe it was to test it out. Maybe it was to make sure that we all had it flowing in our system."

Fareeha watched the soft woman sit there and chew at her own lip for a time before coming back to the world of the living. "Either way, I trust that she's doing what's best for us all!"

Fareeha nodded, mulling over what Mei had said when a lightbulb went off over her head. "Wait, did you say 'survive if we encounter a mortal wound?'"

Mei blinked. "Well… yes? But it's untested, so who knows if that will actually work."

Fareeha did not like the sound of that.

* * *

Lena leaned against the wall to the Southern Wing of the base, the one that housed the more social rooms of the outpost. Memories rushed back to her as she slipped around that corner, covered by Amélie's watchful eye as she perched along top the busted corner of Classroom Wing A. Angela followed behind, and Lena wondered if she was having as many pleasant memories as she. Probably not.

"How are you hanging in there, Ang?"

"I really want to get this over with," she said curtly.

"Yeah, love, but don't you miss it?"

A pause. "More than anything in the world."

A thundercrack shot from Amélie's rifle made them both duck low, but Amélie's voice came over cool and calm, smooth as silk. "There was a problem crawling around, but no longer."

"Agent?" Angela asked, a little too excited in her apathy to have convincing apathy.

"Oui."

Lena was starting to worry about how little Amélie was saying in all of this. "So, Amélie, I like your new outfit."

"Hana compared me to a game character that I do not know." A pause. "Do you think she would explain to me later?"

"Probably," Lena said, standing up straight again. "Who'd she say?"

"Kerriman? Kerrihan? And then she began rambling a while, but I could no longer keep up."

"Kerrigan?" Lena asked helpfully. Hana had once spent a very long afternoon explaining the plot of Starcraft in more detail than Lena could remember anything that had actually happened in her own life, and all she'd managed to take away from it was that there had been a really pretty girl or two.

"Yes, her." Another pause. "Is she badass?"

Lena snorted and slipped closer to the greenhouse's tinted glass walls, which were, surprisingly, untouched by explosions. Smoke, however, showed on them like it was fresh, and more billowed out from the Inner Conference Building that was sheltered by the greenhouse's protective vegetation.

"Hana seems to like her a lot."

Amélie was quiet. "Then Kerrigan, I shall be."

Lena laughed a little, mostly to herself, but Angela didn't seem nearly as amused. Her eyes were suspiciously watching every cast shadow as if it were, in itself, dangerous.

"One thing, though. She said my new visor wasn't as stupid…" Amélie paused thoughtfully. "The qualifier 'as' makes me wonder if my visor is… lacking."

Lena squinted up at Amélie's partially obscured figure. Her new visor was a hard light construction like Satya's own visor with all the same functions as her old one. If anything, it was a significant improvement over the creepy thing she had before.

Angela hadn't stopped flitting her gaze around like a startled baby bird that had fallen out of the nest. Lena couldn't rightly blame Angela, though. Any shadow could be Reyes in wraith form, if they weren't carefully watching. He was a hungry and starving cat laying it wait.

Still… There was something in Angela's apprehension that Lena wasn't sure about. She kept her hands on her caduceus, but her fingers tapped too much for Lena to pass it off. Her eyes darted when there was nothing to see. Her lip bled more than once from her constant worrying.

How much sleep had she lost?

"How are we going to get into the building? Isn't it only available through the bridge?" asked Lena, suddenly realizing how much they were on the ground.

"I'll come grab you and grapple up. Angela can fly, yes?"

Lena turned to Angela, who nodded once in assent.

"Let's do it then."

A second later, Amélie's graceful form plummeted to the ground, and she grimaced when she stood again, holding her hip. "I remember that hurting less."

"That's because you couldn't feel anything at all," corrected Angela, not really snapping at Amélie but clearly having no patience.

Lena stopped Amélie from moving forward to grapple to the HRO Living Quarters. "Hey, Ang, what's your deal? Why are you being so terrible? I thought we were all cool now."

Amélie blinked at Lena and then turned to Angela. "Yes, Angela, why?"

Angela squirmed under their gaze, and Lena started to feel bad for her until she started talking. "If this doesn't work…" She ran one of her gloved and armored hands through her loose hair. "If this doesn't work-" She started giggling. But not a normal giggle. One that was tainted with hysterics. One that was on the border of being completely lost. "If this doesn't work, lieblings, then I have banked my entire life's work on a man who wants to destroy me. If I can't make this work… I will lose everything to this man…" She didn't need to add 'including my life.'

"Including your life," Amélie added helpfully.

Angela gave her a glare, but it quickly dissolved. "Yes, including my life. And more than that. The lives of my family, of everyone I care about. Maybe the rest of the world. Because I am too… too broken to…" She clenched her fists and inhaled sharply through her nose. "Because I could not let go. Whether that is good or bad… we will see."

Lena let go of Amélie's arm a little nervously. "Let's… Let's go flush him out, yeah?"

Amélie leaned in and pecked Lena on the cheek before wrapping her arm around Lena's waist, Lena doing the same in turn, and swinging herself expertly up to the gap in the corner of the building, blown out by an explosive years ago, no doubt.

Lena almost stumbled on some of the exposed rebar, but she was lucky enough to miss it by a hair. In a second, the sound that Lena could only call a sparkling sound alerted Lena and Amélie to Angela's ascent, and she landed like… well… an angel. Her hair fell delicately around her face and her heels clicked softly on the shattered marble.

None of them spoke as Angela took the lead, speed walking down the corridor without a look neither left nor right. Strangely enough, no Talon agents had been inside the building complex. Stationed around it, sure, but not inside. That couldn't bode well for them, but Lena decided that pinning down Reaper was their top priority.

"He should be here, if he's in this complex. If not…" Angela tested the door lightly with her fingertips.

Not locked.

Lena noted the name plate outside said exactly what she was worried it would. Gabriel Reyes with a tattered note under it on old, old notebook paper, written in Angela's messy doctor's script "And Sometimes Angela (:"

Lena could hear Angela swallow as her fingertips brushed against the door just enough to make the door drift open as if by a breeze, but Lena knew damn well that those doors were heavy as shit and stuck terribly when the weather turned humid, not that it was humid now. It was… positively arid, actually.

Lena pushed past Angela and went in, guns at the ready.

Doors and corners.

But there were… no corners in this small apartment, save for the ones leading to the bathroom.

Lena was shocked in a way. She'd always preferred the Intermediate Barracks, though she willingly chose a smaller room with less furnishings because of how often she didn't rightly use her room for anything other than sleeping. She spent all of her time elsewhere.

This small apartment was eaten away by time and weather, certainly, but a simple table with four chairs sat in the middle of an incredibly neat and tidy area. The kitchen was just big enough to have all the essentials and lacked a dishwasher of any variety. There was a moth eaten, molded couch that faced a television that was long out of date and long out of functional use. A simple queen sized, extra long bed sat nestled in the corner with a dusty, equally motheaten and molded simple blue duvet covered it. The closet, still open, was filled with clothes that had obviously been the home of small animals, much in the same way his bed had dents and holes in it from where various creatures would make themselves comfortable.

"Nothin'," said Lena, feeling a little crestfallen for some unknown reason. If anything, she should have been happy that they weren't having the final showdown in a tiny apartment.

"Not nothing," said Amélie as she walked up behind Lena with something in her hand.

Without Amélie having heels on her shoes, it was easy to forget she could be standing there, so much so that Lena had had a few years shaved off of her life from the way Amélie would startle her without meaning to just at home. In the field… There went a decade of Lena's increasingly shortening life.

Angela took the piece of paper with trembling hands and an even paler complexion than usual. She was positively ghostly in the fire hazed light from outside. Where even was the fire? There seemed to be so much smoke and glow from it, but no actual sign of it anywhere. The heat, though, told her that it was likely to be taking to the inner gardens. Perhaps he'd started fires in the garden areas so they would burn inward. So that he could trap them all in flame…

"The hangars," Angela breathed.

"What about the hangars?" asked Amélie with no inflection in her voice.

That terrified Lena.

Angela didn't speak just raised one hand to her lips in complete silence, her shoulders shaking and her eyes tearing up over the course of seconds.

This wasn't psychological torture for most of them, just for the select few that he had a grudge against.

That would include her, right?

It should have.

Amélie read the piece of paper for herself. "Where we began, we all will end."

Lena bumped Angela on the shoulder, trying to perk her up. "Is that like… a sex thing?"

Angela cracked out a sob.

You fucking idiot.

"Lena!" Amélie slapped her across the back of the head harder than she probably needed to. "Come now, Angela. His time draws near." She shifted the way she held her rifle to a more 'ready' position.

"We should actually go though," Lena said, putting a careful hand on Angela's shaking shoulders. "The fire is coming this way, and we need to get out before we're trapped between a fire and a Reaper place."

Angela nodded and squeezed Lena's hand still on her shoulder, eyes closed. Lena tried to smile at her, but it came out as a wince, and Lena knew it. There wasn't anything she could do about it, though. She needed to smile for everyone, just like she had when she joined Overwatch. Her smile - and her ass, but her smile was the one she focused on most - was something that inspired people. Something that helped people feel stronger.

With that, the three of them fled into the fallen night filled with ephemeral shadows and ghostly smoke wraiths to find themselves favorably smiled upon by whatever deity watched over them. They didn't encounter any agents on their way to the hangar, but they did have to climb over their bodies, which were more or less jumbled all on one another like cord wood. Deep ruts had been made by two mechanical feet that looked an awful lot like… rabbit's feet. With toe beans and everything.

She may have gone another color, but she's still herself at heart.

"Doesn't it feel a little suspicious that we're not having any trouble whatsoever getting to the hangar?" asked Lena, keeping her voice low.

"No," answered Angela shortly. Her words were clipped and her posture was rigid. "He wants us alive to torture us." She started to quell a giggle at the last bit, and Lena was truly worried now. It gnawed at her.

Can she come back from this?

Amélie did, so anyone can.

She decided not to argue with herself any more than she absolutely needed to.

Amélie hissed a curse, which drew Lena's attention to her face, exaggerated in the glow of solar powered emergency lights spilling from a crack in the hangar's door. There were dozens of hangars out in the base, but there were only a few that everyone frequented for briefing or, in Lena's case, repair, engineering, training, and test piloting. This was not one of those hangars. This was the primary loading hangar - one larger than most others, save for the ones that were for assembly and testing. This was where Lena loaded up for her first mission alongside some of the people who now fought with her against this force that had once been a part of them.

"What is it, Amélie?" Lena whispered, a tickle in her throat nearly making her cough. These conditions were… inhospitable. Fighting like this… Those with masks and in suits were lucky not to have their lungs competing against the smoke.

Amélie turned, her eyes gleaming. "I don't like this, Lena."

Her voice was… trembling. Desperation touched her words in the urgent way she pushed them out - pushed Lena to listen to her.

"Something is wrong here," she said again.

Angela, who'd been mostly silent save for mewling now and then and breaking into hysterical giggles, spoke with more lucidity than Lena had heard in days. "This is a trap, but we knew that when we headed this way, didn't we?"

"And we're just going to walk in?" hissed Amélie, standing straight and tall, a good several centimeters over the doctor.

Angela smiled widely - unnervingly. "The longer we wait, the longer we put off the end, Amélie."

Amélie shook her head once then again, more decisively. "You are not fit to fight, Angela Ziegler."

Angela giggled again, too high, too giddy to be normal under any circumstances. "You're right. I'm not fit to fight." A pause, her teeth shining in the emergency lights' orange glow. "I'm fit to end this."

A feeling like her insides were filling with tar overwhelmed Lena. They should wait for others to arrive before they walk in, but with Angela conscious, they weren't going to win this fight with her. Angela would walk in on her own before she would wait on anyone else to come save her. In that, though, she wasn't just risking her own life, and Lena was very sure that she didn't want to go out in a blaze of glory anymore.

She looked to Amélie, who stared intently at Angela's unfocused eyes for a long moment before she shifted her gaze to Lena. Her eyes were soft with pity and understanding even though her face was that of the firm, uncaring Widowmaker. She nodded once and her lips twitched as if to say something else, but no sound came out. Lena nodded, her heart sinking.

There in the dark they said their last 'I love you's before facing Reaper without a single word passing between them.

Something about that weighed down on Lena with such finality of a tombstone sliding across the top of a raised grave. The slab that covered her and extinguished all light and hope. They weren't coming out of this one alive.

Not this one.

Amélie was the first to shove open the door just enough to shimmy through. Her movements were clear enough. Reaper would be watching out for her specifically, so getting her to a safe place where she wouldn't be seen was their best option for survival.

One, two. Lena thought to herself. One to stun, the second to kill.

Angela was silent now, her pained, strained, desperate and hopeless noises gone out like any light that Lena had had before entering the dimly lit hangar, its shadows grown long and obscuring all but the main floor. The catwalks overhead were draped with white cloths, covering shapes that were probably the machinations that would help make the softly, ominously clinking chains move to raise planes and lower cargo. Platforms stood as sentinel skeletons watching over the corners and lining the walls like an audience ready for a show.

Lena didn't feel the strange electric power from Angela's boosting caduceus or the other weird tingling it instilled when it was switched to a healing stream. She cast a quick glance back to find Angela clutching her pistol with both hands. It wouldn't do much good, but it would startle him for sure. Lena didn't even want to think the name, lest it call him up from some shadow. And there were a lot of shadows.

The buzzing of those orange lights overhead…

She realized that she was wearing a bright blue neon sign that pointed out her exact location and nearly groaned. With it being so dark, she would be a flare in the pitch black. She and Angela slipped around a few covered crates of what were probably spare parts, several thumping steps making Lena spin around with her pistols directly in Angela's face. Her foot had gotten caught in the white cloth that covered the boxes. Lena breathed out a sigh of relief as Angela pushed down her pistols with a frown.

Tension hummed through her body, which was essentially just a tight as hell rubber band, ready to break from being pulled too far. Her eyes felt like someone was sand buffing them every time she closed them, which made her realize that she wasn't blinking very often. It was also probably because the smoke had irritated them despite her visor.

This building was, thankfully, free of smoke, even if it did smell like wet dog and moldy bread had a nasty baby. She was used to that smell from raiding these hangars, though. She knew them inside and out. Even better than Angela. Probably better than Jack.

Which meant… Reaper would probably-

"Angela, Lena, and Amélie. How nice it is to see you all…"

The hairs on Lena's neck stood on end, trying to very well leave her body entirely along with the rest of her flesh. Her eyes darted around, but it was too much to ask of her. She couldn't see anything out of the normal. The lighting on its own was hard enough to navigate, everything reduced to patches of orange tinted light and pitch black segments with little but a golden disk of light falling in the center of the hangar's main floor.

"And yet," drawled the sandpaper rough voice. "You can't see me… That must be eating you alive…"

Raspy, gravelly laughter echoed through the hangar, amplified somehow, but Lena wasn't sure how. It was clear that he wasn't using the intercom system. No, this was something else.

"I have waited for so, so long now, and now, I have everyone exactly where I want them. You split up just like I knew you all would. You're too young. Too inexperienced… It's like trying to catch fish in a barrel at this point," he droned on, the sound of his voice shifting from one side of the hangar, to another in some bizarre traveling surround sound. "This is why you fell apart without me. Jack and Ana had the right idea by meeting up. Unfortunately, they weren't much of a challenge either. With Ana injured like she is, it's quite a pity that I won't get any joy out of taking her life. They're too traditional to be a challenge. You… You all are too predictable even though you want to think you're different. This way…" That laughter rolled out like a landslide once more. "I get to take my time in doing exactly what I want to each of you…"

Lena reached back to Angela and touched her hand. Angela's breathing was becoming erratic and loud and ragged. Lena was trying to control her own, but she knew that she wasn't doing such a great job of it.

"And Amélie, you think you're clever…" A snort that they shouldn't have been able to hear. There was a long pause only filled by Lena's and Angela's sharp breaths. "Oh, finally, she's finally figured out how to turn the power back on."

Sure enough, Sombra and Satya flipped on the power to the whole base, but the emergency lights cut out for just a brief second before the familiar blue-white light of the primary lights came on. When they did, however, Gabriel Reyes, pouring black smoke - black flecks tinted with a burning red that fizzled out the further away it got from his most solid form, stood in the center of the hangar, his arms wide, facing Angela and Lena.

Lena took his opportunity for gloating to dart out of her hidey hole and try to draw his attention from Amélie, who was more than a little exposed in the rafters. How did she even get up there?

Her breath came in short gasps, her lungs strained from the smoke and her body taxed from running for what felt like forever. She fired off round after round, zipping and darting and flinging herself around space and time. To anyone else, it would look ridiculous, but it did draw Reyes's attention enough for him to pull out… Lena slowed, the inertia forcing her to take a hiding spot for a few seconds to recharge.

That wasn't a shotgun. It was a…

Walkie talkie?

Lena's accelerator blinked in a recharge, and she took off again, aiming her pea shooters at Reaper's hand, but he turned immaterial for just long enough to evade her. She stopped like she'd hit a wall, her throat like someone had taken an aluminum baseball bat to it.

She willed herself backward, but through the warbling sound of the blue space - the timeline and between of linear time points, she heard Reaper's raspy, hating voice roar out, "Widowmaker, Model R-1. Sublimate."

What?

The blue space of warped time faded and she returned to her spot only three seconds earlier. She took one step forward, ready to will herself toward Reaper again to try to pull him away from where Angela took pot shots at him from behind various crates. "Amélie! Get ready to-"

Her eyes whirled upward to find the glint of Amélie's gun pointed at the ready, but wait, something was wrong, it wasn't pointed in the right-

Thundercrack boom.

Pain.

Searing, horrible pain like ten thousand volts of electricity coursed through her, radiating from her sternum.

She tried to scream, but she couldn't even open her mouth.

She quickly realized, through the haze and agony and lavaflow heat pouring from her chest that… she couldn't move.

no...

Her eyes traveled upward in the space of that half a second's registry.

Standing on the rafter beams, Widowmaker aimed downward at Lena Oxton. Her visor covered her face, but what little Lena could see of her expression was as cold as the grave.

Another crack of thunder and lightning, and Lena felt herself falling backward in slow motion, paralyzed by the electric currents coursing through her from the stabilizing shot meant for Reaper. The lava burst in her chest now, she knew in the fractions of a second that passed, came from her heart.

Instantly, she became cold, and everything faded at the corners of her world, vacillating between a maelstrom of light and eternal darkness.

The between.

But much worse. So, so much worse.

huh, so this is what death is like...


	65. Part Three: Propane Nightmares

Jack stood there another long moment, looking at the wreckage of what had once been a monument to his pride. But hell, he couldn't spend the whole fight just sitting there reminiscing about the good old days. The good days where he and Ana and Gabe would wander out of the fake offices with wide smiles and deep bows of appreciation to crowds of fawning civilians. Ana never did smile much in the public eye. It was part of her Image.

He couldn't stand there just jerking off to the world grown old.

He had to keep moving.

Are you sure about that, Jack?

Don't let him get into your head.

I'm already here, and you know it. I never left...

He absentmindedly scratched the spot under his collarbone where Angela put that weird shit in his body, and it burned. It itched. It was too… Too familiar to all those injection sites that he'd endured in his first time in the supersoldiering program. They'd burned like this. They'd burned so badly those first few nights after each injection that he could hardly sleep, and he, a thirty year old man at the time, had cried himself to sleep. Overwhelmed by the sheer irritation and agony of having thirty of those burning welts all over his body. Pulsing. Radiating.

He wondered if Ana remembered it the way he did.

Everyone had walked on to the edge of the Visitor Center's hull - its broken, dilapidated architecture reflected Jack's mood rather well - and were squeezing themselves through a hole in the wall that should have widened under an official's touch, but the structural damage was too deep for it to move much on its own. He was getting lost in his head from the stress of it all.

He was withdrawing and watching the world go by in the worst of it all. The absolute worst time to get locked in his own head.

Jack shook his head - his cavernous head filled with cotton and memories - hard enough to make his vision flicker, the node attachment on the back of his head disconnecting momentarily. The red tint of his visor and the strangely colored world faded away in that moment, and the world of light and shadow danced before his eyes. In the corner of the Visitor's Center, he could see the faint outline - the faintest silhouette - of a man. Gabriel.

When his visor reconnected, the phantom was no longer there, though his gaze lingered.

All in my head.

Are you sure about that, Jack?

He locked eyes with Jesse for a long moment, and Jesse waited on him, kicking little chunks of debris around to busy himself after that unnerving eye contact. Jesse could see right through him. And… He couldn't imagine his life without Jesse. At first, he thought it was weird because of their age differences and their… history… but now… Jack couldn't imagine trying to get through one goddamn day without Jesse's care and support.

Maybe a little weird anyway, though.

Even now, when Jack was supposed to be in the lead, Jesse was waiting quietly in his own way - in his own support. They were on the same team now, and there wasn't anything to be done about the situation they were in. If anything, if they all died that day, at least Jack and Jesse were teamed back up for one final shindig.

"Jack, you're lookin' a little rough," Jesse whispered, checking over his shoulder to make sure that anyone wasn't immediately close by.

"I'm feeling my age," Jack said, trying to play it off.

Jesse leaned in and kissed the mouth of Jack's visor. "I like it better when I can really get ya."

Jack couldn't help but smile just a little.

All the ghosts that haunted him seemed to back away for that small moment.

Then he remembered where they were.

And what they were doing.

He followed Jesse through the broken down door and stuck close by him, trying to hold on to the one thing in his life that seemed to not be spiraling out of control. He watched the way the younger man swaggered over to his crew and jostled the large Winston so jovially. Like there was absolutely nothing wrong.

"We should do a sweep of the area," Winston said firmly with a nod that Jack thought was to himself. "Even though there seem to be no combattants other than ourselves," he continued muttering, again, mostly to himself, Jack thought.

Jack decided to take the lead, leaning over to quickly check on Ana before kicking down a few doors with his gun at the ready. But every classroom only housed ghosts and the scuttling vermin that had made something out of the rotted hollow of Overwatch's buildings. Maybe their homes were doing them more good than Overwatch ever had for the world.

Philosophical bullshit. Overwatch as an organization might have fallen in some capacity, but he was still standing there as much as these buildings. There was still something left of it even if it was old and cold and so very full of mold.

The darkness had begun to descend in earnest, now. With every door kicked open, now by Jesse who still had some energy left in him, a little light spilled into the rest of the hall, but even that was running out. The smoke was choking out the last light of the sun, and soon, inky blackness would consume them all.

Edgy.

"It's going to get too dark, and then he'll have the advantage."grunted Ana as amiably as ever. She was started to sound more like herself, though.

Jesse sniffed. "Sounds to me like he's already got that."

Ana nodded once, not quite in assent and not quite ignoring his comment.

"We need power," agreed Genji.

"I'm sure that Sombra and Satya will have it on soon enough," reassured Zenyatta.

Reinhardt just laughed. "You're putting much stock in a woman we barely know or trust."

Zenyatta tilted his head toward Emily's mech. "Can you shed some light for us?"

"Oh!" Emily yelped. "Sure!"

And Unit One swept a blue-white light around the area, lighting up the most damaged part of the hall by accident. Jack was sure that if no one had come for casualties, more bones of the long forgotten would litter the place than he could even imagine. The blood stains still plagued the crumbling complex as dark reminders, but there was no way to scrub that clean.

"Sombra," Jack snapped. "Power."

"I'm working on it, I'm working on it. Calm down viejito." Her voice was more strained than Jack had ever heard it, and that was starting to worry him a bit. That thin veneer of calm and aloofness was beginning to wear out.

The group of them stood at the end of the long hallway, waiting for the power to enable them to move on to the next set of buildings through a sky bridge. They all exchanged uncomfortable looks and tried not to think about what could happen next.

"Should we contact the others to find out where they are…?" asked Genji, obviously concerned. He wasn't trying to sound detached anymore.

Their tense silence was broken by the triumphant screeching in Jack's ears,"Got it!"

Lights flickered on with some hesitation and grudging compliance to show how truly terrible their home had become. Places where they once held classes on strategy and peace were now just the hulls and silk sacs of insects - a brooding ground proving everything that the journalists had said for so long. This place wasn't infested, it was rotten. Dilapidated. Collapsing.

He'd known and seen, but seeing it in this light was something else entirely.

Jack felt his shoulders slump just in time to snap into action at Ana's horrified gasp. A sharp, unexpected thing. One filled with such emotion that he couldn't think to hesitate in jumping into action. But there was no assailant. There was no one there. Not physically.

She pointed, and Jack caught Reinhardt's pallid face in the line as he led his eyes toward where Ana pointed so vehemently.

A charge blinked steadily.

A charge attached to the power source connected to the bridge.

A charge that hadn't been activated until just this second when Sombra flipped the switch.

A charge that looked exactly like the ones Reyes had planted years ago, so close to the original spot.

We're trapped.

* * *

The first shot called Angela's mind back to herself.

The second shot scattered any rational thought to the breeze.

And yet, Angela Ziegler was certain that in that moment, she'd never been more lucid and collected in her thirty-eight years.

Everything that had been so fuzzy and disconnected and far from her body snapped back into focus like someone had finally gotten rid of that little piece of fluff blocking a viewfinder's precise eye.

Gabriel Reyes… Reaper, now, had done something to Amélie Guillard.

Amélie was in full Widowmaker mode.

Angela watched as Lena's body slumped forward after her eyes had flown wide. Her knees hit the ground first, which made Angela think that something inside Lena had will enough over her body for the nanosecond between the shot turning her organs to complete pudding and utter death to try to hang on for a few moments longer.

Angela had watched plenty of her friends die in a similar fashion, but never once had she seen someone fight the inevitable death that would overcome them so quickly.

As she locked eyes with the unmasked face of someone she used to know, the clock inside Angela's mind started ticking down.

* * *

Fareeha Amari jolted, her good ear picking out the telltale sound of a sniper rifle firing off not too far away. Once. Twice.

Oh, shit.

Her eyes swept through her meager, makeshift tenement and watched as only two others reacted like her. Mako, a man who she knew little about other than the vague idea that something about him scared the pants off of her, lifted his head and seemed to look away from the excitable young man at his side, and Torbjörn snapped up with a lot less care than Mako had taken. It seemed that everything Mako did was to regulate his responses. That, or he just didn't care one fart about anything that was going on ever that didn't immediately concern Junkrat.

What kind of name is Junkrat...

Mei was very busy chatting with Bastion and equally busy ignoring Junkrat, who she'd taken a near immediate disliking to and who was now trying his damndest to get Mako's attention.

Mako put a hand on his shoulder, shook his mammoth head once, and raised his index finger. Junkrat fell silent, his gleaming, shifty eyes darting around like an excited, mischievous child's.

"Was that ours?" Torbjörn asked roughly, sparing no thought to the others that hadn't noticed.

Fareeha shrugged but figured that was too hard to see in Raptora, so she put up her hands in a wide gesture.

"yes," rumbled Mako's thunderous voice.

Fareeha swallowed hard. There were only two outcomes that she could think of that would legitimize the use of the rounds like Amélie's. The radio silence instead of excitable triumph was equally distressing.

Mei paused her conversation with Bastion to tilt her head sideways, her eyes growing wide. Fareeha strained her ears - her good one anyway - but all she got was a good tinny ringing instead. Of course. She tightened her grip on her rocket launcher anyway and watched as the others quieted their chatter and turned their eyes toward the doorway.

Their bunker had been found.

Dull metallic thudding finally reached Fareeha's ears, and everyone - save Bastion, who nestled themselves between a wall and a pile of boxes and looked entirely inconspicuous - took to cover, readying to spring their trap.

As much as Fareeha would have liked it to maim instead of kill, there wasn't exactly a "gentle" switch on Junkrat's weaponry nor Torbjörn's turret. She readied her concussion blast, saying a small silent prayer to whoever or whatever watched them in their plight.

And the massive, rusting solid metal doors creaked open just a hair, black smoke pouring in.

Fareeha swore low and pushed herself into the air, readying herself to take a shot.

Everything happened in a flash.

The doors flew open from a crack pouring in smoke to a gaping hole with Talon agents attempting to pour in, but she felt a smile crack on her lips. They surged - a black clothed ocean of clambering humanoids - and crammed themselves through the protesting metal doors, which had been barred and reinforced to only open so far. Fareeha shot up even higher, alighting on the rafters, and leaned against one creaky beam, watching Junkrat's excitable, angular face light up as she jammed the button to the detonator repeatedly.

Fareeha sighed, thinking the derelict contraption was busted, but a massive slap smacked her down out of the rafters, and open air caught her as she fell backward in the wake of the teeth shattering explosion. She just barely caught herself by launching herself horizontally into a nest of boxes before she was too close to the ground to avoid danger. Coincidentally, the boxes she landed in were the ones labeled: EXPLOSIVES.

She pushed herself up and onto her feet to snatch up her rocket launcher and send another swarm of wasps fleeing… and splattering. Mei walled off a few agents to where Junkrat's souped up cherry bombs bounced off at a flattering trajectory, and Mako's hell of a scrap gun shredded the agents like a salad shooter. Bastion ceaselessly fired a covering spray out the door, where bodies were beginning to pile, but agents were still crawling in and trickling around too quickly for them to keep up. Torb's turret was doing as good as it could, but there were only so many of them.

No…

Fareeha took off in the air, breathing hard.

Those crates… Those crates might take out the whole lot of them…

Getting them set up to not explode the rest of them, though, was difficult enough.

"Junkrat, I need you to rig some explosives to not kill us."

"I'M ON IT!"

* * *

"Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!" yelled Hana over and over, yipping like a pissed off pomeranian. "What's got me! What's got me!"

She wasn't nearly as panicked as her voice conveyed… or was she?

She wasn't.

That's what she had to tell herself anyway.

"You are tripping on small rock? It's nothing." Zarya gave her a solid push and dislodged Hana's mech from the rock and hard place she found herself in, Hana turned to look at Zarya, but Zarya's face was… pensive despite her revelry in battle only a few minutes before.

Waves and waves of Talon baddies had been passing through their area, seeming to have some kind of goal in mind, but they were mostly stopped by Hana's team. There were stragglers, of course, but Hana had a sneaking suspicion that they were going to retreat. Something else thought it might be more sinister. Holding their ground had become top priority over advancing in any direction because one less Talon agent for other crews would be… well… one less Talon agent for other crews.

"What is it, Zarya?"

But Lúcio answered. "Something feels wrong."

His sunshine smile was long gone. Gaunt seriousness dug into his face, just blow his cheekbones.

Hana nodded once and adjusted her headset. "Satya, are you okay?"

"Sombra and I have come into little contact with Talon agents. We have seen them moving toward the airfield, though." Her voice wasn't exactly strained or even concerned. If Hana didn't know better, she'd think that Satya was just doing a puzzle that only mildly challenged the smallest fraction of her brain. Her face would have said more than her tone, though, and Hana knew that.

Hana and Lúcio shared a look before Hana said, "Satya, Sombra, come meet us. We're going to the airfield."

Within a few minutes, lights - the kind of lights that lit up the air strips for optimal landing condiitons and the kind of lights that told the world that Overwatch HQ was actually really genuinely active - brightened the encroaching night sky.

Another minute later, a shot fired into the darkness from somewhere not too far off. The sound of it was like a cannon, a concussion in the smokey darkness so loud and startling that Hana jumped inside her mech, hunkering down to ready for combat. But no one came. No one except two lone figures, both glowing like neon signs to get shot.

Sombra and Satya.

Hana clunked up to meet them with a chunk-a-chunk-a-chunk of her mech in the blood soaked ground, and Lúcio joined shortly behind. He embraced Satya with a wide smile and a sweet kiss, and Hana cursed herself for being stuck in her mech. Sombra smiled languidly.

"Where's mine, pretty boy?"

Lúcio frowned apologetically, and Hana could tell he was blushing even though his face wasn't exactly lit up too terribly clear. "I, uh, sorry. I don't…"

She punched him in the shoulder. "Relax, dude. It was a joke."

Zarya snorted and rolled her shoulders back, adjusting her massive gun. "We should get moving. The airfield is not far, but ti will still be difficult to navigate with Talon's destructive wake."

Hana couldn't have agreed more.

Hana's mech easily overcame each of the terrain obstacles, but the others had a little more trouble navigating through the bodies and the pillars of granite and concrete that jutted from the slimy ground like teeth from decaying flesh. Once or twice, she had to offer one of her cannons so that the others could scale the rocks without coming to certain harm.

After working as a team and cresting the ridge that now separated the air strip and the hangars, Hana gasped and immediately regretting being in a beacon yellow mech.

"Oh my god…"

"Hana, what-" Lúcio's words died in his mouth as he approached her side.

Zarya, Satya, and Sombra shortly followed suit with similar mutters of incredulity, but Sombra's overt distress sent them all reeling.

"This was never supposed to happen," she whispered, just loudly enough for Hana to hear. "He hid his forces from me, and I underestimated him…"

Before them lay the hangars, which were surrounded in a sea of fanatical Talon agents, all of the same face and identical in their hatred and willingness to destroy. There were only five of them on this manmade hill of concrete and steel. There were only six of them in the larger of the hangars immediately off of the air strip.

Hana took a shaking breath. She wasn't fit for this…

But you're all they have.

She had to be fit for what they needed.

She had to fight.

No, she wanted to fight.

For her family.

* * *

Angela pushed herself away from her spot and took aim, not at Reaper. No. It would be reckless and pointless to do anything to him. Amélie, on the other hand, was exposed and weak to Angela's rounds, which were made with energy rather than bullets. If anything, it would at least force Amélie - no, Widowmaker - from her nest.

Angela could never face Reaper in a one on one attack. If anything, he'd trained longer than she'd even been alive. How could she compete with that kind of genetically manipulated and enhanced ability?

Widowmaker, though, Widowmaker was vulnerable. She was tender. An open wound. Potentially weakened.

Angela had done everything she could possibly try to do as a doctor and as a forgotten friend so that she could revive Amélie from the depths of Widowmaker's embrace and Talon's general fuckery. But then… the small spot on the x-ray that she couldn't identify. The speck she passed off as a fluke. That… that had to be something. Something Angela missed.

Which meant… It was mechanical.

And machines could be broken.

Widowmaker hissed, not that Angela could hear, but she could see the sneer on Widowmaker's face.

That sneer filled Angela with heat that burned away her inhibitions, and something deep inside of her cracked, filling with light - raging light. Her jaw strained. Her muscles and bones creaked. Her spinal implant clicked and sent a rippling shock through her. She glared up at Widowmaker, her figure moving rapidly on the other side of her ironsights.

There was still hope.

There was still hope because Amélie, if it was mechanical, could come back.

There was still hope because machines could be broken, and programming could be overridden.

There was still hope because of the resurrection project.

There was still hope because she was there.

And Angela Ziegler roared.

* * *

Ana took a shaking breath, her heartbeat beating three times as fast as the slow throbbing rhythm of the charge's red light planted near the sky bridge's power connector to the Classroom Hall. Everything was dizzying enough as it was - moments of clarity and moments of utter confusion brought on by a bout of jitters she couldn't even hope to control. It was a taste of her own medicine. And she didn't like it very much.

Side Effects: Nausea, Vomiting, Rapid Heartbeat, Dizziness, Lightheadedness, Excess Energy, Indigestion, Fainting, Irritability, Hallucinations, Paranoia, and Can Lead To Depression.

My God, I really need to rework this formula.

Her breathing felt… labored. Those goddamn darts in her leg were really taking their toll on her physically. They were supposed to be used sparingly - in extreme cases that would help the user get to safety to heal up more permanently, but she'd popped them like candy and was really feeling it.

"We have to get out of here," Jack breathed, scratching his neck where his visor met his flesh - a sign that he was getting claustrophobic.

Not good.

"He's got us trapped, and we need to get out of here," he said again.

He was talking too much. Starting to sound like he was winding himself up into a frenzy, which none of them needed. He'd been such a valiant and fearless leader for so long, and now he was reduced to a paranoid, easily frazzled wreck. But she supposed that that was all of them, at this point. Reyes's mind games were wearing them down.

First, the smoke.

Second, the hordes of agents.

Third, the terrain.

Fourth, the power outage.

Fifth, the Visitor's Center bullfuckery.

Sixth, the eerie hallways of their former home.

Seventh, the explosive charges.

And now, Jack was starting to crack under the pressure like IKEA chair legs. She wasn't at her best with her leg still throbbing the way it was, but even now, it hurt less than it did. Not because of the drug haze of her darts, though. She could stand on i, and even walk with a limp, if the darts didn't tip her over with a sudden bout of vertigo. She'd patched herself up more than once when she was under her cover of false death, but she'd never healed such a major wound so quickly.

She was beginning to realize, though, that Angela had meant what she said about what she'd done to them was a miracle - but still so potentially dangerous. On a basic level, Ana knew that Angela had modified Reyes's genetic material from Mei's excursion into another form, but she didn't know what that form would be. Now, it was starting to make sense. Or… It could just be that the darts were making her see connections and patterns where there were none.

That was a very real possibility.

Still, Ana couldn't shrug off the feeling that Angela had done exactly what she said she would do - distill the regenerative properties of Reyes's genetic code and put it into a usable form, which would mean that Ana was recovering extraordinarily quickly because of the throbbing apricot pit under her collarbone. In fact, the side effects from her darts were already wearing off when they should have lasted hours. The more subtle ones could even last days, and even those were fading.

She looked hard at Jack, straining under the weight of her realizations. He was scratching again.

"Ana, you're the only one I can talk to about this."

Ana looked up from her book and stared at Angela for a time, waiting on her to continue, but the doctor was more than a little frazzled. Her hair practically stood on end - a bird's nest of unkept broomstraw - and her eyes were reminiscent of someone who'd been in a barfight and taken a few dozen right hooks. And about as many left hooks. "Go on."

"I'm worried about what this might do to some of the crew," Angela said with no further explanation.

She wasn't going to explain herself, so Ana figured she could at least go along with it and let the poor girl talk it out. "Who?"

Angela scratched the back of her neck where Ana knew there would be raised nodes - little metal studs that settled just above her spinal implant. Ana knew Angela was thinking about Gabriel.

"I'm worried about what this might do to those of us with… genetic enhancement. Like Jack. Like you, even."

Ana shrugged. "It's not me you have to worry about. My conditioning was extremely light in comparison to Jack and Gabriel."

Angela shook her head, keeping her voice low. "It could break him."

That gave Ana some pause. "How?"

Angela laughed a disconcerting laugh. "You know what happens when you get tinkered with too much, right Ana?"

Ana didn't respond. She'd long since set down her book.

Angela's giggles subsided and the gaunt, haunted look returned to her face. "I need you to get it out of him at the first sight of him breaking. You have to, Ana. If I'm not there… If I'm not fit to do it… You have to save him."

"Why me?" Ana asked.

Angela smiled a lopsided, not quite there smile. "Because if you don't, he'll become the next Reyes."

"Jack, how are you feeling?" Ana asked abruptly, interrupting one of his rants.

He looked at her, and his neck was flushed with agitation. "Does it matter? Everything's going down the tubes. Nothing matters. We're going to die here."

"Hold up, now, Jack," said Jesse, hands up placatingly, but his voice shook. He'd probably never seen his partner like this. Ana hadn't, for sure.

"Jack, I need you to calm down," Ana said in the most firm voice she had. It sounded pretty good, all things considered.

She pushed herself off of Reinhardt's side and approached Jack slowly, but his hand was on his gun. "What are you trying to do, Ana?"

"Nothing, Jack. You just need to take a breath, okay? Everything's going to be alright. We'll get out of here no problem, yeah? Just like in Hong Kong, right? You remember that?"

"Ana, what-" Jesse started, but Genji put a hand on his arm with a firm headshake.

Ana had to give it to the guy. He was smart.

"Of course I rem-" Jack hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, and Ana found everyone staring at her extended arm. The sleeping dart that would have been on the cuff of her gauntlet was gone and protruding from the center of Jack's chest.

"He'll be fine. Right now, we have to get Angela's shit out of him, or we're going to have a very big problem on our hands."

* * *

"Hana, I need a favor," grumbled Ana's calming voice over the line.

"'Sup, halmoni?" Hana asked, trying to sound a lot more calm than she was feeling. They were all trying to make a plan to bust Fareeha and the gang out of their little bupkis hill they'd made for themselves. She'd never really planned on Ana needing her help, so sounding too eager was easy to do at this point - anything to stop thinking about the pitch black sea of lunacy before her. With the smoke clearing, she could see thousands of men.

"How do you feel about a little jailbreak?"

Hana smiled wide at that. "Depends. How dangerous is it? That makes the ratings go wild."

Ana snorted. "Well, we're surrounded by agents, probably. The fire is creeping in. We're all stuck in one building. And there's explosives rigged to the power, so if we trip anything, we're fucked."

On the surface, it sounded like a ludicrous heist. On a deeper level, Hana couldn't help but feel exactly like she had when she'd sacrificed her entire team to wipe out the enemy. Part of her wondered if this is what it would come down to again. Killing everyone so that she could get away with just some flashbacks and a guilt that eroded her very mind every second of the day.

"Sounds like a job for someone with a lot more qualifications than I have," she said nonchalantly, secretly hoping someone else would swoop in and save the day.

Ana sighed over the comm before raising her voice to a whispery, girlish tone. "Help me, Obi Juan, whoever the fuck you are, you're my only ho."

Hana smacked herself in the head by accident from reeling back in laughter, her whole body convulsing like she was having a mild seizure. She lowered her voice into her best Harrison Ford impression, which was still speckled with laughter. "Well, when you put it like that, how can I resist?" And in a normal tone, she said, "I'll gather the crew and head that way."

"Good. We're in the Classroom Hall closest to the airfield."

Hana pushed open the hatch at the top of her darkened mech and sat on the top, watching everyone talking. She'd not really offered anything useful, but now she was about to really mess everyone over. "Hey, uh…"

Lúcio held up a hand to the loudly protesting Zarya, who huffed loudly at being silenced but turned her attention to Hana. "What is it, small bun?"

"So… we might need to be a rescue team for another group instead," she stretched lazily, pulling up through her arms and reaching over her head, interlacing her fingers and swaying from side to side.

"Who?" asked Satya, her arms wrapped tightly around her torso, brow wrinkled.

"Ana and the gang. Reyes kinda has them trapped in a rigged building. She thinks that the explosives are tied to power sources in the building. If it gets a surge..." Hana made an exploding motion with her hands.

Lúcio frowned. "Why can't we just cut the power?"

"It might explode, idiot," snapped Sombra. This was the most irritated that Hana had seen her, and it was getting a little spooky. "If a power surge hits it, it could blow up. If power goes off to it, it could trigger an explosion. If they breathe funny, it could kill them all." She pinched the bridge of her nose, her eyebrows as furrowed as Satya's. "I underestimated him and his madness. I never thought he would go this far…" A pause, and mostly to herself, she added, "I should have been keeping a closer eye on him…"

Hana felt the urge to comfort Sombra, but that urge was easily dispelled when she remembered how much she distrusted the little woman.

Lúcio interrupted. "More importantly, we should answer some questions. We can mope about it later. How are we going to lift them out?"

The others started chattering about strategy, and Hana fell into her own thoughts again. It's just one big game. They're locked down tight, and you don't just push into a fortified Terran base. It's suicide. So… bait them out? Bunkers and turrets we can handle. It's the heavy stuff in concert that's hard to deal with. All dug in with tanks and widow mines. If they were moving, though…

Hit an expansion, where it hurts. Attack something they need. Draw out the army. Baneling drop? No, better not think in terms of suicide bombers right now. Still, fast and light. Fast and light.

Then, when their army is in transit, hit it with everything we've got. Blow 'em up before the tanks can siege and the mines can burrow.

"WAIT," Hana yelled, too loudly.

Everyone raised their weapons in a flash at her exclamation, and she felt her face turning a shade of red that few people had ever seen.

"Sorry, uh… I just had an idea!" A small wave of nausea washed over her at how stupid she felt, extrapolating that kind of thinking into a real-life scenario, but then again, that's why the Korean army had picked her up in the first place. "We're going to distract them. We're going to make the biggest fuss that they can't ignore."

"But we're supposed to be drawing their attention away?" said Zarya, her pink eyebrows knitting together.

"Exactly. If we hit 'em and distract 'em, they'll have no way to know we're actually doing a rescue op, right?"

Lúcio smiled wide. "Hana, you're perfect, you know that right?"

* * *

What do I do?

Angela panted and covered herself behind a stack of boxes and a slab of metal that was supposed to probably patch a plane. There wasn't anything she could do to really put a dent in Reyes, and Amélie was temporarily immortal from the genetic safety precaution. She knew this had been a risk. She just didn't think that the chances would be… against her. This was a perfect example of how everything could go so, so wrong.

But never in her wildest dreams had she thought that Reyes would somehow use Amélie - something Angela herself had missed - against them all, much less against the only one that might have a lasting effect on Amélie's psyche.

What if I can convince her to...

She trailed off in her own thoughts, drawing her eyes upward, tracing a dancing shadow on the wall to the rafters directly over her head.

Widowmaker descended, and Reaper laughed.

Amélie fell, and Angela's ribs all but caved in at Amélie's impact against her chest. The air was sucked from her lungs, and the heat in her chest exploded, her gun clattering onto the concrete.

But Angela wasn't about to die at the hands of Amélie.

If it were Amélie, I wouldn't mind so much. But that… That is not Amélie.

The long-fingered hands of the woman above Angela started to close around her throat in slow motion, the chill of death wrapping each talon around her neck. Angela twisted, swiping up her arm and slamming down hard on Widowmaker's forearms.

Widowmaker did not even grunt.

Her pupils constricted into pinpoints and her nostrils flared only slightly even though Angela was sure that that level of force should have at least fractured her forearms, and as if more on reflex than actual pain and withdrawal, Widowmaker snatched back, readying her elbow to swing down into Angela's nose, smashing through her skull and into her brain.

"Don't," Reyes grumbled from afar. He was watching and enjoying this. "I can't kill her first, and you know this. What fun would that be? No, keep her alive. Keep her restrained. I have other fish to fry."

His heavy boots clomped away, leaving Widowmaker and Angela suspended in a deadly dance of two people intertwined, both looking for a reason to kill the other. No, I don't want to kill her.

Widowmaker simply stopped moving after Reyes's command, and Angela strained under the strangling pressure, though her windpipe opened just enough for her to take labored, if not horribly pained, breaths.

Everything clouded - her thoughts, her senses, her… well… everything. Her surroundings were far flung and disconnected from her. Only the sensation of Widowmaker's fingers around her throat made any impression on her. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she was transported to another lifetime, it seemed. The feel of the hardwood on her elbows. The rug just under her head. The broken lamp on the floor beside her, wild eyed Amélie over her, tears in her eyes.

Watching Amélie sit down her coffee mug. No, Lena's mug.

"Does your face hurt? Your swelling has gone down considerably, but that doesn't mean that your body isn't feeling after-effects. The damage to your tooth could not have been painless either."

Chilly silence.

"Yes."

Pain.

The answer was pain.

Widowmaker arched her back, rounding her shoulders and pushing her weight back to her knees. She was still straddling Angela, but she was also far enough back that Angela could still move a little. Too much, though, would risk tipping off the feral Widowmaker - whose pupils were only animalistic pinpoints. Angela twisted once, as if trying to wrench away. Widowmaker's grip on her tightened, making the assassin lean forward and levee herself more toward Angela's face.

One shot. One shot, or you die, Ziegler. Get it right.

Angela sucked in one breath and used Widowmaker's leverage against her, wedging her shins underneath Widowmaker's chest and slamming down on her forearms with a shout.

Only then did Widowmaker yell, but it wasn't the cry of a feral creature whose mind had been obliterated. It was the cry of a person in surprise and shock and agony. Angela had probably fractured Widowmaker's forearms in that strike, but it did send Widowmaker reeling backward, whining like a kicked puppy.

Air had never tasted so sweet to Angela Ziegler, but she couldn't lie around languishing in her joy and revelation. Instead, she scrambled to her knees.

You're going to have to fucking shoot her.

NONLETHAL. I CAN'T RISK TWO.

And Angela dove for her gun.

* * *

Satya firmly demanded that she partner with Hana this time, to which no one really objected, but Hana was glad to have her on the team. Not that Lúcio, Sombra, and Zarya were a huge team on their own anyway, but hell, they had to work with the numbers that they had.

Which were exactly two for Hana's team.

Okay, so this isn't the big bust I was looking for, but it'll have to do.

"Hana, what are you thinking about?"

"How I'm basically risking all of our lives based on my freaky intimate knowledge of video games and strategy."

"Perhaps I shouldn't have asked." But there was a tender smile on Satya's lips.

The two of them, as stealthily as possible considering Hana's giant yellow suit, made their way back and over into the area where the dilapidated Overwatch building crumbled ever so gracefully.

"I thought they said the building was surrounded…" Hana muttered quietly the literal moment before something cracked her cockpit's glass. "FUCK. Can we get like… two fucking seconds?"

Satya was already on it with her weird beam gun out and running toward the shooter, throwing a shield and getting ready to fry the bastard when Hana was completely awestruck at how ready and unwavering her girlfriend was.

Now's not the time to be wooed, get to the mission.

"Satya, do you think you can hold off any agents while I fly in? Will you be okay?"

"But of course." She laughed her throaty little laugh. "All things serve the beam."

Hana rolled her eyes. "God, you're such a fucking nerd."

And she boosted herself up into the building, but something about a giant yellow robot in the sky made people start shooting at her.

Oh. I'm the distraction…

She couldn't writely scoop herself up into the building where there were people waiting on her and relying on her while she was under heavy fire.

"Shit."

Her boosters were running out of juice and needing to recharge too soon after she'd lifted off. The building was only three stories, but still, there was something about how hard Hana had been running her mech that was forcing her baby to its limits. She barely made it to the topmost corner, where it was solid enough to even land, before her boosters made a sputtering noise and a cough. She pulled left, and her mech swiveled around, it's twin cannons trained on the places from where agents tried to upset her apple cart.

Joke's on them.

The flashes in the darkness reminded Hana, briefly, of her time as a movie star with hundreds of glittering cameras following her every move. Hell, if she hadn't absconded to Overwatch, she'd still probably be in that vertigo hellscape.

Ms. Song! Ms. Song! Do you have anything to say about the premiere?

Yeah, sure, I'm here, so it's a real party.

A real party.

The thrumming of her own machine coupled with the sounds of steadily cracking glass made her mind wander. Maybe she wasn't fit for battle. But maybe… Things started clicking together in her head the longer she zoned out, and she'd almost forgotten how naturally her plans could click into place.

A real party.

Boom.

That would be some fireworks. Some sparks.

A real fucking party.

No… Satya was down there. She might get hurt.

A distraction, Hana. That's all they need.

"Satya, get out of there. Get to cover."

"Hana, are-"

"I'm gonna blow this banana stand."

"Hana…" It wasn't the kind of fear that made her sound afraid for her own life. It sounded more like she was worried that the decision might hurt… Hana.

"Listen… I have enough power build up in this thing for one more push, but it's weak. I need to drop another from space or else… well… this thing's gonna break on it's own."

There was a moment of silence - save for the pinging of casings rattling off of Hana's increasingly whining and wheezing mech and the booming of her own guns.

"Can you give me a few seconds to get to cover?"

"Of fucking course, Satya," Hana said, digging her mech's heels into the roof a little harder. She was going to have to propel herself to safety pretty damn efficiently so she wouldn't catch the wrong end of her blast. "The only one who gets to roast you is me. And Lu. But we only roast you a little, and we only ever say nice things. A honey roast as it were."

Satya didn't really reply, but then again, Hana's ramblings were really just for her own sake. This was going to be a tough one and she knew it. One wrong thing and she'd blast herself into oblivion or knock herself unconscious or dead on a rock. There was a sheltering rock face - a broken off bit of the building - that jutted from the ground like a mighty fortress had begun growing from the earth and stopped prematurely.

That looked solid enough for her to hide.

Hana asked into the general communications line. "Hey everyone?"

"We ain't gettin' any younger," said Jesse, obviously trying to shrug off something.

"Get away from any windows."

"Are you seriously going to cause an explosion when we have a problem with… explosives?" asked Genji.

Hana hadn't thought about that.

"I've thought about it," Hana said, "and I really think that the best thing we can do is to go ahead and take care of the problem out here, especially since they're concentrated. It wouldn't make any sense for those bombs to be triggered by surrounding explosions, or else that would risk even more guys, and while we know Reyes doesn't particularly care what happens to his people, I really doubt he would be as stupid as that."

Everyone on the other end was silent for a moment too long for Hana's liking.

"We're under cover," Reinhardt confirmed.

Hana took a breath and swiveled her mech again. Set the sequence, hit the boosters, launch as soon as I hit the ground. One second from set to boosters. Two seconds from boosters to the ground. Two more seconds from the ground to the safety. I'll have five seconds if that doesn't work.

You've done riskier, Hana.

Yeah, but not in a while. I'm out of practice.

Maybe you should practice more if you get out of here alive, then.

Hana nodded to herself in her own little argument and took another steadying breath.

"Voice command, activate." Her screen lit up with buttons and dials and screens that hadn't been there before. She smiled to herself, seeing in the upper left hand corner the silly ass catchphrase for detonation. She hadn't said it in a long time.

"I'm covered" crackled Satya's voice through the hull of the deteriorating mech.

Hana's small smile spread into something much wider, much more feral, and much more excited.

"NERF THIS," she shouted, and the glass of the windshield turned a brilliant flashing red. She jammed down on her boosters and hit the ground with a jarring lurch forward. The giant red button lined by black and yellow border found itself smashed in by Hana's fist a second later, and Hana soared into the sky, pushing herself at an angle to avoid bashing her skull in on the concrete.

Blue white light pierced through the gloom, and this time, the explosion didn't frighten Hana with flash images of people disintegrating before her very eyes. No, this explosion cleansed an area that had become infested with pestilence. It gave back some of the light that these people had stolen from a once-great organization.

"Hana, what the fuck." Jesse didn't even sound annoyed or incredulous, and Hana laughed. It wasn't even the slightest bit hysterical. Okay, maybe a little.

Once Hana recovered, a moment of panic seized her. "Satya, are you okay?"

"Quite fine, thank you," she said crawling out of a place not far from Hana's own hiding spot. She emerged, her long hair shining in the white fire left from her mech. She, unlike everyone else, seemed to be completely untouched by the dust and ash and grime of the destroyed complex and base.

"Let's go save the nerds, yeah?" Hana paused. "Gotta call down a new boy though."

Satya nodded once and trotted off a ways before giving a thumbs up.

"All systems buzzing!"

The sky, which was obscured with smoke, smog, and other shit, darkened even more at one point, which rapidly grew larger and larger until it rained down a yellow mech identical to the last. The earth around it shattered, and Hana began teetering over a bit, her arms pinwheeling without her necessarily wanting to look like an ass.

She patted the mech, and the smell of fresh paint oozed off the thing, making her a little dizzy. That was one problem with this kind of process, but it was insignificant, really. She climbed in and nestled herself on the seat, appreciating the little fresh linen air freshener that only Athena could have thrown in there before MEKAfall.

It was a nice little touch that Hana knew very well was just Athena's way of saying "good luck" and "I love you."

Hana ambled over to the glowing Satya in her giant yellow suit and thought for a long minute, looking up at the building. "Actually, Satya, do you think you could make like… a slide?"

Satya blinked up at Hana's mech. "That… is a brilliant idea."

A few minutes later, they'd made a slide out of hard light and were ushering down the mess of crew trapped in the old building. Hana's stomach dropped for the three hundredth time in the time since she'd been dropped in this warzone.

Jesse was helping Jack, whose leather jacket was covered in blood, and he staggered around like he was asleep. Hana ran up and accosted Jesse. "What happened here?"

Ana spoke instead, startling Hana. She hadn't seen the older woman for Genji being in the way. "He was losing it. I cut the implant out," she said flatly, as if that explained everything, but Hana decided that they had much bigger problems than Jack being a dazed and confused old man.

That's not true, and you're just being a dick.

Okay, but like… consider this… if I let myself get worried, that's all I'm going to be able to think about, and we haven't heard from Fareeha or Angela in a very long time.

"Let's move out, yeah?"

Everyone seemed pretty much in agreement, and Reinhardt ended up carrying Jack around, punching agents if need be. Everyone bustled through, but Zenyatta floated up by Hana to keep her company until they met up with the group that had broken off to provide a "distraction." It turned out that they hadn't seen a single soul the entire time.

"We should go check on Angela…" wheezed Jack, panting hard between words. His head lolled though, and Reinhardt had to catch him before he hit the ground.

They were two senior members down, as far as Hana was concerned, and radio silence was… unsettling. The jammers still hadn't been fixed, and there was only an increasing tension rising up in their groups.

"What do you fear, Hana?" asked Zenyatta, his voice as calm as ever.

"Something bad, Zed," Hana replied honestly as she could.

"There are many things here that are bad."

"Yeah, but I've got a funny feeling about this kind of quiet."

"It is not just you, Hana."

* * *

Amélie felt herself shriek and clutch her left leg, her knee hitting the ground, probably fracturing another fucking bone. Someone was hurting her. Hurting her again and again. Her body hurt. Her bones hurt. Everything about her hurt.

Her eyes felt like they had sand in them. Her lungs felt like she'd been underwater for hours without coming up for air. Her forearms felt like someone had tried to snap them in half. And her leg. Her fucking leg.

Another wave of pain rocked her body backward, and she burned for all she was worth. Her head split in two and proceeded to fry itself from the inside, forcing her to scream in the most undignified way possible, but how could she even think about dignity when something was tearing her apart from the inside. The chill of the concrete floor soothed her profuse sweat, but nothing could cool the anguished burning inside of her.

Her very mind felt like it was burning away into ash and cinder in the wake of the terrible fire within her. It burned against her everything.

"You're going to feel quite uncomfortable, but you should be completely healed once everything is said and done. If you don't die first." Angela had said before shooting a fairly large ball bearing into Amélie's body.

Now, discomfort would have been a cool, damp touch on the lips of the damned that lay rolling around in the deepest, hottest pit of hell.

The lights overhead blurred into three before snapping back together into individual blinding white eyes. In a matter of a nanosecond, Amélie had been transported back into her memories of being strapped to tables - cut and prodded and electrocuted just to make her empty. Now… Now it was like facing all of her demons at once.

The mirage of a small brown haired body in yellow-orange spandex lay lifeless on the floor, and though it was not real, Amélie was sure, she screamed again. Everything… Everything felt like needles in her skin. Like spears through her eyes and her heart. Everything felt like it leeched every single neuron from her body, cut them up, set them on fire, and put them back. She was reaching for the phantom body… Lena. Something to hold onto. Someone to hold onto.

Her Lena.

Her best friend.

Her lover.

Her fiance.

Her world.

Too far. She was just too far. But the image hadn't shifted or faded like her hallucinations usually did. No. This one…

Flickers of memory licking up, tongues of ephemeral flame that she could neither accept nor deny, showed her that this was no hallucination. That this was very real.

Lena was very dead.

By Widowmaker's hand.

By Amélie's own hand.

The surgical fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, and distantly, metallic rolling noises thumped like a machine's heartbeat in her ears. Her vision swam, wavering for a long moment, bordering on the edge of utter blackness, and when she blinked again, she saw Reyes and a labcoat standing over her.

"This is only a failsafe, you realize," said the labcoat gravely.

Widowmaker wasn't sure how she knew the labcoat seemed concerned, but she knew. She still had inklings of feeling, though they would be quickly purged from her. Empathy, she knew, was one of those that needed purging the most.

I do not ask questions, she said to herself.

"Yes," Reyes replied. "I know full well that once I use this, she'll be nothing but a husk able to take the most basic commands."

"It's half-life is incredibly short. She'll only survive, at most, an hour after the detonation. This is the worst case scenario."

"So it fries her brain?"

"In the simplest terms, yes, it fries it into sludge, and it will kill her within an hour of use."

Something tickled the back of Widowmaker's mind, unease, maybe.

"How far can it work?"

"If she gets away?" asked the labcoat.

"Theoretically, yes."

"The signal gets weaker the further away she is, but consider about… eight hundred kilometers as the furthest optimal distance. We can work on a booster for the actual detonating device, but… I highly doubt you'll need it."

"Eight hundred kilometers is perfectly fine. It isn't realistic to be able to detonate it from anywhere in the world."

"This is pushing reality by itself," the labcoat sighed.

"Do you feel sympathy for her?" Reyes asked, his voice turning cold.

"No. I just wish we didn't have to do any of this. I wish everyone could just see the way that we do."

Reyes smiled and clapped the smaller man on the shoulder. "They'll come to see our ways, I promise this."

Her mind was absolutely fried. Boiling over. Roiling and nothing but a raging sea of molten lava with chunks of sanity darkening the hideously brilliant fireglow.

Her voice had long since given out.

It hasn't even been an hour, has it?

Something in the back of her mind still capable of the perception of time agreed that her time hadn't yet come, but… something had tipped this off.

Pain.

God, she could feel the pain. So much pain. The pain had scratched out her voice and done away with it entirely. It manifested in how someone had split her head like a thin shelled egg. It manifested in the claw marks she'd inflicted on her own skin, trying to put out this fire. It burned away at that dark presence that lingered in her mind - the one that she'd nearly forgotten about because of how it incessantly tickled the base of her skull and whispered for her to kill, to abandon all hope and to kill.

Lena was gone…

Lena was gone…

I did this.

You did this, she wanted to scream at the emolated Widowmaker in her mind.

REYES DID THIS.

Reyes.

Reyes pulled the trigger.

Reyes gave the command.

There was no way she could have resisted it.

How was she free now?

The fires started abating so slowly, and a cooling mist seemed to coil itself around her body. A golden glow clouded her vision as she stared up at the lights - those judgmental, all seeing eyes. And she wondered if this is what dying was like.

So far away, she heard a friendly, familiar voice calling her name. She'd missed her friends. She hadn't been good to them…

"Amélie, come back to us…" It whispered from so, so far away. "We can't lose you too."

Amélie rolled her head - she couldn't very well turn it of her own accord - toward the sound of the voice.

An angel in white and gold crouched over her, reaching down with a golden staff and an outstretched hand. Amélie tried to reach for that hand to let it take her away from this place, this life. Without Lena… Without the family that she'd come to know in the last few months… It was not a place worth living in. Her limbs were as heavy as lead.

"We need you, Amélie… There's still a possibility that… There's still a possibility that we can save her."

Amélie's eyes snapped open, and the burning became but a dull ache in her heart and head. She forced her body to move.

"We don't have much time…"

* * *

Hana Squad busted into the hangar, guns raised and ready to blaze, but all they saw was Angela crying and Amélie rolling on the ground, screaming in the most inhuman way Hana had ever heard anyone scream. She'd seen people with their limbs torn from their bodies - people with parts of themselves disintegrated from blasts, and people riddled with holes but still trying to hang onto life despite the odds. None of them had done what was happening right in front of her now. Hana watched uncomfortably as Amélie writhed on the ground, clawing at her face and hair, convulsing and trying to scream. All that had started to come out were croaks. It was too much to look at for too long.

She looked over at Ana, who was rubbing at the spot on her chest, almost subconsciously, it seemed. Jack was staggering and still very much out of it, but at least he was awake now. Everyone else had suffered mild scrapes and grazes in getting here, but everyone was also pretty much fine.

Hana pushed her bangs out of her eyes, and then, it dawned on her.

"Angela?"

Angela didn't look up from Amélie's increasingly tuckered out body, but life returned to her cheeks in increments.

"Angela? Where's Lena?"

Angela still didn't look up.

"There's still a possibility that we can save her… We don't have much time," she heard Angela whisper.

Hana's guts twisted sharply, and her face turned cold. All of her blood ran… somewhere else. Nothing in her felt anything other than a tingling coldness. The kind of coldness that seizes you when you've had particularly bad news in an otherwise uplifting day. The kind of coldness that strikes you and leaves you feeling hollowed out, electrified, and very nauseated.

Her lips moved, turning back from the stone they'd temporarily become. "No…"

"Hana, don't-" She didn't know whose voice it was. Her ears were ringing so badly.

She was already climbing out of her mech as quickly as she could, her foot slipping on one of the rungs, making her bang her shin against the ladder, but she could hardly feel it. Her body was on autopilot, and her mind was racing and blank all at once. She thought she might have been muttering, but she couldn't tell.

She popped the top hatch on her mech and pushed it open, desperately clawing her way to the top, where she would normally sit to watch the scene before her, but now, from atop her mech, she saw a sprawled body laying in a pool of dark liquid. A sprawled body in a yellow tracksuit. Lena's body.

Before Hana was even aware of herself, she'd jumped down from her mech and started to take off in a sprint. Her eyes burned, but this couldn't be real right? This was just a PTSD nightmare, right?

A massive bar knocked the air out of her as she ran into it, but she could have sworn it hadn't been there a moment before. Hana struggled to pick herself up, but she couldn't move any more than if she were but a child in a carseat. Her lungs hurt and she found herself beating on the restraints, which were unbreakable. They were Zarya's arms.

"Let me go!" She wriggled and hot streaks ran down her face. "Let me go, goddamnit!"

"Hana-" Lúcio started.

"Don't! Just let me-"

She reached. She didn't know why she was reaching. All she knew was that her heart was breaking inside of her chest, and she was starting to feel so, so hollow.

An opaque blue wall materialized between Hana's line of sight and Lena's body. That didn't sever the anguish from her heart and mind. She knew she was yelling. She knew she shouted profanities in three or four languages. She knew that she was cursing Amélie even though she'd seen with her own eyes that Amélie would never be capable of something like that. Unless… unless it was all a show.

No.

She had to trust that… something else had happened here.

"Hana, please," Lúcio pleaded. "Please…"

Hana finally tore her eyes away from the hard light wall Satya had thrown up between her and Lena's lifeless corpse. Lúcio's face was… streaked with tears, looking up at her with red, glassy eyes. Hana realized she'd never seen him really cry. Beside him, Satya's eyes were beyond horrified, beyond scared. Jack looked shattered where he stood. Ana looked hopeless. Reinhardt even sagged under the weight of what they'd come to see. Only then did she see these. Only then did she see Genji and Zenyatta both holding Jesse upright, tears streaming down his cheeks and into his facial hair, but even they were weighed down with what had happened.

Angela's dark eyes were as empty as her words. The nail marks against Amélie's flesh ran with tears and blood.

Zarya's breaths shuddered, and Hana looked up at her face. Her strength was going before her eyes.

Angela's own sigh drew Hana's attention back to her. Her eyes were dark and hopeless. "We have to kill Reyes in the next ten minutes, or all hope is lost for her. As soon as I pull the trigger on Resurrection, all of your implants will burn up instantly. There are no second chances."

"What do you mean?" Hana cried out, too loudly, too fearfully.

Hana " " Song was falling apart in front of everyone, but no, it didn't matter. These people were her family, and if anyone could see her weakness, it would be them.

"I can bring her back, but if I do it now, we won't have another chance if one of us..."

Everyone turned to Angela, who squirmed under their gazes.

Ana's gruff, thick voice broke the uneasy silence stretching between seconds. "Angela, what have you done?"

"I made a failsafe. You know that, Ana." There was no remorse on the doctor's face. "And if I'm right, Reyes is going after my girlfriend next. I would like to have as few bodies on my hands as possible." She turned to Reinhardt. "I'm sorry, old friend, but I need you to carry Lena."

Amélie spoke coherent words for the first time. "No, I will carry her. This is my burden."

Angela shook her head. "We're wasting precious seconds. We need you to kill Reyes more than anything else. Jeopardizing that…"

Amélie nodded once and cast another furtive glance toward Lena's corpse.

Her corpse… Hana shivered, and her breath caught in her throat again.

"PL... SOMEONE ...CKING COME… N…"

Hana convinced Zarya to put her down just in time to have her eardrum blasted by Fareeha's voice. She staggered, clutching her head, but she was still the first to respond. "Fareeha?"

She blubbered a series of words that Hana couldn't understand save for 'Reyes', but Ana responded quickly, "He's there? Fareeha, what are their numbers?"

"HEAVY FIRE. GET HERE QUICK."

Hana passed Sombra with a scowl, but Sombra was too busy muttering to herself and looking at her screens to be bothered. "They've been jamming us… They knew we would make plans and cut off one of our limbs despite our efforts…"

Angela swiveled around from the direction Reinhardt sauntered away and her wild eyes pleaded. "We have to go."

"We don't have much time," Jack grunted, the gruffness in his voice thick with drug haze and pain.

"That's why we should hurry," said Lúcio definitively. Satya nodded and turned to look at Hana, waiting for approval.

"Let's move out, then. We have to save everyone we can."

Even if it means losing Lena.

* * *

Amélie couldn't tear her eyes away from Lena's body. She knew, logically, that every single one of Lena's organs had been liquified as soon as that high caliber shot ripped through her heart. It would have hit her heart. It had to. But still… her death had not been instantaneous. And that hurt as bad as anything else. If she wanted to kill Lena instantly, she would have exploded her head like a watermelon. But what had kept her from doing that?

She scratched at the clotting lacerations on her face, but they were already mostly healed again. It had to be Angela's device that saved her life - her mind - from being even more ripped apart than it had been. There had to be something keeping her alive, because she knew that Talon wouldn't have made that mistake.

But then again, there she stood… Not under their control any longer.

Her own person.

But still, she'd lapsed just long enough to kill one of the only things that she'd found was worth living for. The only thing - the only reason - that had kept her consciousness alive under Widowmaker's grasp in the first place.

There was still a chance, though. A chance to save her. A chance to make up for the wrong she'd done.

A chill crawled over her body with the gust of wind that came through the open door from where Hana and her crew had come in. Amélie was still panting and covered in sweat, not that anyone was looking at her. In fact, everyone seemed to be doing their best to not look at her. Her face seemed to be healing before everyone's eyes, but there was… something incredibly upsetting about watching someone you'd lived with for months suddenly lose their minds and be reduced to wailing on the floor only a few meters from your dead teammate's body, and that much Amélie recognized.

Angela was on the move before anyone could protest much, but Amélie had lagged behind, watching Lena's head loll around in Reinhardt's arms. The most logical way to cart her around would have been a fireman's carry, but the great gentle Reinhardt would never do that to her. He'd been kind enough to close her eyes for her.

Amélie realized that the stinging on her lip came from trying to chew it clean off her face, and she sighed. It wasn't too late, but… She felt a kind of defeat all the same. The same kind of defeat she felt when she thought to the detached memories of killing her former husband. Pain. Regret. But there was something in her for Lena that had died under Widowmaker's withering grasp. There was nothing to fuel Amélie's rage with Gérard until she'd come out of her fog and freed herself from what Talon had made her, but she'd still had nowhere to turn that anger. Now, she had a target.

And now, she wouldn't miss.

I'm sorry I failed you, Lena.

Her thoughts quieted after a moment - once Reinhardt had slipped from the killing grounds of the hangar where Amélie had turned for the final time. Where she had had her free will completely stipped from her for the last time. Where she had harmed her beloved for the last. fucking. Time.

Amélie took off at a dead run, aiming her grappling hook at a broken window that would lead directly onto the catwalk. From there, she would be able to scope out everything. She had no one to fight. The others were taking care of that.

Where will he be?

Think like him.

How?

You know how. Think like her.

That took Amélie by surprise. More than anything, the fact that she'd come up with the idea surprised her.

Thinking like Widowmaker would have its advantages, but Amélie was still afraid that Widowmaker would take over somehow, even though she knew that there was no way for her to do it, at least not mechanically. Not any more. Not ever again.

Amélie took a deep breath and hit the button for her grappling hook, her arm snatching up the rest of her. She hadn't exactly gotten used to the new equipment yet, and her shoulder ached a dull burning ache. To anyone else, it probably looked cool. To her, it just felt like she'd tried to rip her own arm off.

Focus.

Amélie pulled herself up into the window, standing up to her full height and looking down on the gruesome scene before her. Concussive explosions rattled her still throbbing skull and threatened to crack her head open again.

These hangars are incredibly soundproofed…

At most, in the hangar where she'd killed Lena, there were dull pops that sounded like kids setting off cherry bombs in the cul-de-sac down the street, but not the sounds of rockets and actual bombs exploding. Fareeha dodged like an arial ace, popping off rockets with finesse and sprezzatura unmatched by anyone with her. Mei was very busy making the vast majority of ground troops into slowed messes or ice sculptures, which was… unnerving, considering how their last major conversation had gone. If she had been around when Amélie lost it, Amélie probably wouldn't be standing there. She would definitely be a corpse in a fireman's carry over Reinhardt's shoulder. Spooky to think about for too long, really.

Junkrat and Mako were also busy, but in a completely different way. They were making sure that the enemies couldn't advance through a bottlenecked door, where bodies stacked up like cord wood, making the terrain difficult for any intruders and blocking in those who did manage to scramble over. Bastion and Torbjörn were working in another area, but they were doing about the same as Junkrat and Mako.

All things considered, they were holding extraordinarily well. Amélie admired Fareeha dodging over to the front end, exploding her way through lines of angry Talon ants. Apparently, no one had been told to cover the back door.

That's not true and you know it. Now that everyone has moved out and into this hangar, they'll envelope it. They'll make it like a noose and tighten down on us. No horseshoe movement this time… We won't have a chance to escape if we don't get airlifted out of this one.

"Athena?" Amélie asked quietly as she could.

"Amélie? I-"

"Don't ask. Listen. I have little time."

There was silence that Amélie took as assent.

"Do you see what's happening to the ground troops?"

"Yes, of course."

"If we can clear a space, do you think you can get us out?"

A pause. "Yes."

"Give us time, and we'll do our best."

Athena was silent, which Amélie didn't quite expect. After a moment, Athena's tranquil voice came over the line. "Amélie?"

"Yes?"

Another pause.

"I know you did not do this."

Amélie's heart squeezed, and her breath came too shallow. "Thank you, Athena…"

And the line went dead.

Amélie looked down at her sooty boots and her tactical pants - her gloved hands and her fashionably distressed coat - and she sighed. She reached up to her headgear, fashioned closely after Vishkar's own, and flipped down her visor, a hard light projection that tracked movements and gave information and readings. With her right hand, she brought around her rifle, modeled after the one Talon had given her, and she brought it to her face.

"Voice activation:" she whispered, feeling her body tensing as she crouched, every hair brushing her face becoming nothing but a dulled stimulus to unnoticable. She felt her eyes sharpen on the readings. Some of her mods had not gone to waste. "No one can hide from my sight."

Her visor shimmered once, its blue surface rippling and taking on a completely different appearance - one that showed movement through walls and shapes of people even beyond the hangar. Here was hoping that she could cut down on the time it would take to find Reyes and dispose of him, or at least cut down on his chances of escape or survival. The blue images temporarily overwhelmed her, such a departure from the redness of Talon's visor that it was jarring, and it took her another second longer to parse out who was who in the field of blue bodies.

She saw the pulsing horde just beyond the hangar's entryway and could pick up on the fluttering life waning from those lying on the floor in their death throes. More importantly, she supposed, she could pick out the shapes of her comrades. Most importantly, however, she saw the quivering signature shaped like the phantasmal Reyes - a flickering thing that barely gave off any signals of being alive, but when it did, it flared and flamed in her visor.

One shot, one kill. You can do this.

Amélie crept along the catwalk, trying to get the advantages on Reyes, but it was almost like he knew she was there. But no, he would still think her under his control, at best, or dead from brain melting at worst. With Angela doing her flying around, Reyes probably thought her inconveniently dead. Either way, Amélie was out of the picture in his mind, and that much she knew for certain. The way he was moving, though, was lining up with the rest of the Overwatch crew, and Amélie realized that they were falling into their old patterns of fighting. She couldn't tip them off, though, or Reyes would know something was amiss. Maybe it wouldn't signal that she was working with them, but it would let him know something was wrong, and then he would change his patterns, making him more difficult to pin down. The best thing for her right now would be to keep him thinking that everyone was going to fall easily into his trap. Which they would have, if not for Amélie.

The catwalk was in enough of a state of disrepair for it to be a challenge, whether from general mayhem from below or previous harvesting jobs from the Overwatch crew. They were as good as scavengers at this point. Her rubber soled boots barely made much of a noise at all, even with her darting around, because of the confusion below.

Golden glows offset the eerily lengthening shadows from orange light, and Amélie cursed herself for letting Angela foil at least some part of her grand plan in her head. She wanted to keep Angela back to keep her out of harm's way and giving away herself, but Amélie knew that she would have never allowed herself to be held back from helping her team when she could.

Reyes moved around behind their crew, where they hadn't been watching.

Amélie crouched, pulling her rifle up, waiting on him to come into plain view instead of the blue shadow in her visor.

Talon ants came in weaker waves, and Reyes stood watch as if waiting on something to time out. It wouldn't be long before Amélie was back in the dark, and a flicker of fear danced down her spine in a terrible shiver, her fingers going cold. What if, somehow, he knew?

No. That was just him getting in her head again, as he was want to do.

Then why was he waiting.

Amélie could hear those below panting and muttering to each other, but Junkrat let out a hoot of victory.

A chilling laugh filled the room in a way that wasn't… normal.

The hairs on the back of Amélie's neck stood on end, and she readjusted her grip on her rifle.

She watched Reyes spread his arms wide, and she thought she could see the tip of his gauntleted hand in the gesture. "You all think you're clever. Stronger in numbers than alone… But I've trapped you all here, and you know it. So why do you resist this? Do you just plan on going out in a blaze of glory? Do you-" a pause and his whole body sagged. "Is that a fucking Evangelion?"

It would have been much funnier if they weren't all about to die.

Amélie watched the blinking blue bar in the corner of her visor ticking down to the final few dozen seconds. Come on, you son of a bitch. Enough small talk.

A smaller, quieter part of her whispered, He doesn't want to die, either. That's why he's drawing it out.

The blue figure shrugged. "I suppose it doesn't matter now. You willingly walked in here, and I've been watching. I've been watching you st-" But he cut himself off in a round of sputtering coughs, clutching his side and doubling over for painful moments before he straightened again. "I've been watching you struggle and fight, but you know this is as hopeless as any of your endeavors. Jack… You've become a withered old man. Ana, you know what we could have had. Reinhardt, my old friend, you used to be so much more, but all you are now is someone who pretends to be what they once were. Like all of you. Like every single last one of you."

Everyone started gripping their guns a little tighter and changing their body language to suggest they were about to go on the attack.

Come on. Draw him out.

Her counter was almost gone.

"At least Lena had the decency to go out while she was still ahead," he yelled, his voice making even Amélie's ears hurt. There was something in his voice that was so… raw with anger. Something that Amélie hadn't heard, and she'd heard him at his most enraged. Nothing about this was the cold anger he'd exacted on her, and it wasn't even the anger he'd expressed when he would openly slaughter insubordinates. In her visor, she could see spittle flying from his mouth like a rabid dog. "Why do you fight what cannot be stopped? I am immutable." He straightened even more, widening his posture. "I am eternal."

Angela was the first of the Overwatch team to break Reyes's attention from himself. "Not anymore, you aren't. Gabe, it doesn't have to be this way. Come home."

Reaper met that plea with a shotgun blast, whirled up so quickly that Amélie's scanners scarcely had time to perceive it. She was on the move again, trying to keep Reyes in her sights, but the visor's extra ability had been depleted and needed a recharge. She would have to do this the old fashioned way, if she wanted to get anything done.

She was taken aback by how much Reyes had changed since she'd last seen him. His eyes blazed more than they had in the other hangar, acting like that had just been all rote and memorization. Like every detail had been planned and executed. There was no passion in it.

His eyes, though the most haunting, were the least telling of his condition. His body was deteriorating. He looked like a corpse surrounded by a cloud of ash and smoke. His face now unobscured, Amélie could see the scarring and the dark veins in his face, darkening the sockets of his burning eyes and tracing down his face, like in a dream she'd had of her own self not too long ago.

Amélie shook her head, realizing that she'd temporarily stopped time in her own head just long enough to take it all in, but everyone else had started moving in an instant.

"Shit," Amélie whispered to herself, watching Reyes's corpse like figure dematerialize before her eyes and explode into a cloud of black smoke. She only had so many bullets, so she had to be sure.

Reaper's ghostly form whirled and spun, hands and arms materializing just long enough to unload a blast from an ethereal shotgun before twisting and blowing apart again like smoke in a cyclone. He seemed to be able to cover every angle at once, and he wasn't there enough for their bullets to do any kind of meaningful damage.

And all the while, two red dots glowed hatefully from within the churning mass.

Hana tried her best to corral the old haunt, but her arc was too wide for his movements, all because of a tiny miscalculation. She was, however, holding her own rather well. Bastion was effectively useless without being able to put down full cover fire, but they did shoot off in the general direction, careful not to graze anyone. Mei was working in tandem with Hana and Reinhardt and Satya to corral Reyes into an acceptable area, making his movements more restrained, but it almost felt like that was what he wanted.

"Oh, no…" Amélie breathed before hissing into her mic. There was still time. He didn't look ready. The signs weren't there. Not yet at least.

Cacophonous ringing reverberated through the metal, and lights overhead shattered with ricocheted bullets. Reaper materialized again, apparently unable to hold the attack for long, but he hardly seemed to slow.

Jack tried to draw his old comrade's fire, and a glancing shot shredded his left arm. With a grunt of agony, he ducked behind a crate, blood pouring out onto the floor. "Ana!"

"I've got you." From some unseen perch, a dart took him in his unwounded arm, and a moment later the bleeding slowed - though not enough. He tried to raise his rifle, but he couldn't seem to support its weight.

Genji was next. His long blade was held strong in one hand, the other throwing out shurikens that the ghostly Reaper hardly seemed to feel. Almost offhandedly, their enemy raised a shotgun and fired at something close to point blank range; Genji raised the sword to block, to reflect, to protect-

And the Dragonblade shattered.

The force of the blow knocked the wayward Shimada onto his back, and as he struggled to rise, shrapnel embedded deep in the plates of his chest, Reaper - without looking, raised his gun once more to execute him.

The last thing Amelie would have expected saved his life: a hook. The great metal hook, on a great, heavy chain, lanced in from seemingly nowhere, its point driving deep into Reaper's chest. Reaper grunted, whirled, his shot going wild, but before he could react, Mako had tanked it back - and Reaper with him. "get over here."

Mako caught Reaper with one big, meaty hand around his throat, and squeezed. Reaper struggled, his guns having clattered to the floor. Then he went limp, and then he went ghostly - sliding out of Mako's grasp like smoke through his fingers. The hook fell from where it had hung, suspended, in his chest - but then a black, clawed hand had grabbed it, swinging it in a brutal uppercut.

"Roadie!" Junkrat screamed, genuine panic in his voice for the first time Amelie had heard.

Reaper dematerialized again and flowed into the shadows.

Mako staggered back, a deep gash in his stomach pouring blood. One hand clamped uselessly over it, as though he could hold in his draining lifeblood. His back hit a stack of crates, which nearly toppled as he leaned back against them. His scrap gun fell to the ground, and with gasping, pained breaths, he fumbled a canister out of his gear and pressed it to his mask, inhaling deeply. He crushed it, dropped it, and grabbed another, repeating the process.

Lucio vaulted over the crates, nearly landing on Mako's shoulder. "Here," he said quickly, pressing what looked like a small boombox into the big man's free hand. "Keep this close. The audio waves will stimulate healing. That plus the gas should keep you-"

Mako clamped a big hand onto Lucio's shoulder. "go. be fine. they'll need you."

Lucio looked pained, eyes darting from the closing dash to Mako's mask and back. "Alright, big guy. Be safe, yeah?" And before Mako could respond, he was skating back to the main group, where Reaper had returned to causing havoc.

Jack looked particularly worse for wear, his left arm a limp bloody mess, which made Amélie wonder how close to death's door he was. Ana gave him a boost with one of her terrifying darts. Even Hana got caught on the tail end of Reaper's shots, scuffing the brand new yellow paint on her mech.

Winston, who Amélie had not given much attention to since returning to her senses, was causing havoc on his end, keeping away any Talon stragglers who thought they could slip in for a piece of action.

Fareeha was, luckily, in the air, doing her best to keep Angela out of harm's way, which, to Amélie, felt like she wasn't looking after the rest of the team as much as they needed. Maybe she thought they would be fine on their own. After all, Reyes was clearly after Angela.

Satya was doing her best, and her beam buzzed obnoxiously in Amélie's ears. Some small part of her was terrified every time she heard that sound. She didn't know why.

Zarya's particle cannon launched off disintegrating shots that contorted everything in its path, but nothing seemed to do much to Reaper except inconvenience him. More than once, though, her purple bubbles were all that stood between her friends and a shotgun blast to the teeth, but even that was only a bother. This inconvenience became most clear in the way motes began to drift off of his body, floating more freely, only slightly different than the way he'd been as he'd burst into action. This time, it wasn't a short burst of wraith form for movement. This was a swelling balloon filled with water on its way to bursting.

"You have to back up. He's going to-"

No one got out of the way in time, not even Fareeha herself.

Nonetheless, Reaper swelled, growing taller and less distinct, swelling like a bubble with smoke trapped inside, overflowing into a smoky, inky darkness with crackling red electricity and gunfire. Streams of hues flowed from comrades caught in the crossfire - fuschia and baby pink and gold and navy, earth tones of green and browns, silvers and metallic bronzes. It would have been beautiful if Amélie didn't know exactly what was happening.

One shot. One fucking shot. When he came out of it, he would be momentarily still, this much she knew. She pulled her rifle to be at the ready, focusing on the spot where he would emerge. One, two. One, two. Get ready.

The explosion of color and smoke receded, and Reaper stood taller, his complexion more of the living than the dead. Putting her crosshairs on his sternum, Amélie breathed a long breath out as the man stood there, laughing maniacally, breathed out all the way, and as if she'd been consciously doing it her whole life, slowed her heartbeat.

Mods?

Or training.

She would never know.

Amélie Guillard pulled the trigger on the first round, the recoil knocking her nearly from position, but she recovered in time to see Reyes's face go slack, his whole body going rigid, his eyes flaring with passion and confusion but mostly… fear.

How does it feel to be out of control, chéri.

And with another gentle tap, thanks to Winston's modification, changing her rifle from single action bolt to automatic ejector, she sent the second shot - the final shot - through Reaper's sternum.

He fell instantly in a fit of convulsions.

Talon agents stopped leaking through the doors. Instead, from what Amélie could tell from her sniper nest, they were moving quickly away from the hangar after an initial stunned confusion of the thundercrack gunshots of Amélie's rifle.

Amélie stood and launched herself down to where everyone else stood, guided by her grappling hook's descent. She hit the ground harder than she wanted, but she shot a look at Angela, who was doubled over and pale. Blood spattered on her angelic face, but it was obviously not her own. She'd been standing closest to Reyes when Amélie had fired the final shot.

Everyone else tried forcing down the Talon resistance while the threat had temporarily been neutralized, but only Hana, Mei, and Zarya went.

Reyes was not dead. He was still drawing breath, though they were ragged, slow, pained, rattling breaths that echoed through the hangar.

When Angela was able to stand upright, she tore her eyes away from Reyes and looked to the corner of the hangar closest to where they came in. She took two shaking steps like a newborn colt before he teetered, catching Reinhardt's forearm and Fareeha catching "Rein, can you go get her?"

Fareeha continued holding Angela, but Ana and Jack had come closer, Jack aided by Jesse. Amélie found herself moving away from the man who lay on his back, blood seeping from his back and flowering behind him and onto the concrete, which would stain it forever.

Reinhardt returned only a moment later with Lena swaddled in a white sheet, one of the kinds that was covering the boxes of scavengable material. Her skin was turning blue. Her lips were already turning purple. In that moment, Amélie shivered, looking at the mirrored image of Widowmaker before her, but she was… repulsed from Lena in a way that she hadn't remembered being put off in all her days. There was something so viscerally upsetting about seeing a loved one dead anyway, but this reaction was something that she hadn't anticipated. She wasn't able to stop herself from taking a step back from Lena's body as Reinhardt set her down on the ground gently in her bloodstained tarp at Angela's feet. Angela knelt down and touched Lena's chest, her wrist and hand emitting a glow that looked so much like her caduceus's light. She must have altered her gloves to interact. A two stage system.

Smart.

But of course Angela Ziegler was smart.

Amélie drew closer as Angela knelt, the glow from her hand transforming from a golden mist to a bright white light.

Angela Ziegler opened her mouth to speak.

* * *

In the middle of white fog and nothingness, she could feel something calling to her. She couldn't pick out what voice it was at first. She only knew that one minute she'd been standing there, ready to distract Reaper long enough for Amélie to take the shot when she'd been the one shot instead. She knew something had gone wrong.

I mean, getting shot in the chest should tell you that something was wrong. And the words echoed in the strange space around her as if she hadn't been thinking them.

How was she thinking them?

There had been a creeping coldness and numbness that spread over her body in the moments after the shot, but she'd tried to break free of it, tried to will herself back through time to avoid this… To avoid dying.

Was she dead?

This wasn't the Between.

The Between was a world of darkness and light - of cold and heat - of color and void. A world of juxtapositions and fragments of her mind scattered like her molecules. She knew when the Between was claiming her, and this was not it. This was something… more peaceful. Less confusing and ripping at her fibers of sanity and reality.

Hold on, someone whispered in this place.

Where am I? Lena asked, but her mouth moved with no air passing over her vocal cords. It was the strangest feeling - a dream where everything was just a little too hyper-realistic and passing into the surreal. Maybe this was just her brain restructuring something to keep her mind from passing on.

Lena, you have to stay here. You can't leave this place yet.

She turned toward the voice, and Gérard Lacroix with his silly little moustache and his wavy hair stood in a pair of cargo shorts and a Hawaiian t-shirt. He looked like he'd been plucked off the beach.

Gérard?

Long time, no see, Lena, he said with a warm smile, opening his arms for a hug, and she went to him, her eyes filling with tears. Well, the corners of her eyes burned like she was going to cry, but there was nothing that actually happened.

When she embraced him, it was like holding smoke, and he vanished for a moment, returning back in his wispy form. Only then did Lena realize how discolored he actually was - how parts of his body blended into the cloud-like environment around them.

You're not far enough along to do that, I guess, he said with a sad little smile. That's not bad, though. You still have a chance to go back and be with them.

Lena blinked. How ya figure? I'm pretty sure my girlfriend just killed me?

Gérard blinked back with just as much shock. You and Amélie? Sorry, I just… I have limited information. My job is a little… Weird, I guess. I've really just taken to ferrying agents. I get to know how things went down, but not a ton of specifics about their lives unless they choose to tell me.

If Lena hadn't been dead, her face would have been on fire. Yeah, about that, uh, sorry, love.

Gérard shook his head. You'll take care of her, Lena. I'm not worried about that. I'm just glad she has you in her life.

Debatable, said Lena, rolling her eyes.

Gérard laughed. Do you think your friends won't come rescue you?

Lena balked. I- um… what?

They love you Lena, and they're going to do everything they can to bring you back. The fact that… you're not… He sighed. I miss you both so very much, but I've found my peace here. I'm just glad to help.

Lena smiled back at him for a second but her face fell shortly after. I dream about you a lot, you know.

Gérard tilted his head. It's not all dreams. Sometimes, I can come see you and Amélie. She shuts me out most of the time, though. It hurts her to remember me.

Yeah… I know. She calls you sometimes in her sleep. It didn't hurt Lena's heart the way she thought it would to say, but she guessed when your heart had been completely destroyed, that would do something about that.

He shook his head and looked down at his shifting feet. She'll find peace one of these days. But he looked up with his warm smile. Thank you, Lena.

Why?

I may be gone, but… You know I love her just like I've always known you loved her. Thank you for… not giving up on her. Even though I can't see her nearly as much now as I used to…

What do you mean? Lena asked, her ephemeral guts twisting. She was afraid she knew.

Amélie… Amélie, as we know her, was much more close to the line than she is now. Widowmaker did her best to kill Amélie and nearly succeeded. I saw something in one of the last times I was able to be with her for an extended time, though, and that was you. I told her to hold onto you.

Lena swallowed, very uncomfortable.

It might separate us all for some time, but… maybe when it's all over… Maybe we can get an apartment together again and live our afterlife in the way we should have lived our lives.

Lena's unease settled some, and she was beginning to forget why she'd been scared. I would like that, Gérard. But what was it that she would have liked?

He paused and became more solid for a fraction of a second. I hope your friends come in the next minute, or I'm going to have to take you… Angela's already breaking enough rules to-

"VOICE ACTIVATION-"

Gérard looked around at the sound of the booming voice, and distantly, Lena registered it as Angela's. Perfect timing. He leaned over and kissed Lena's forehead in the way a best friend might. Go get 'em, tiger.

"HEROES NEVER DIE."

Lena's skin began burning, and the hole in her chest, along with all her organs, began to scream with pain like her body had turned to acid that was working its way out of her through her heart. Gérard's sad smile began to fade, and the whiteness of the place she'd been dissolved into grey overlay with red. She opened her mouth to scream, but there was no air in her lungs to pass through her throat. Her lungs burned and felt like someone had been holding them down. Her diaphragm spasmed, and she sucked in the most painful breath of air she'd ever had. Her heart pounded in her ears and in her chest, and heat overwhelmed her completely - her insides the molten core of a planet being reborn. Like a supernova in the void of space.

The burning began to fade from the furthest points of her body, but that was replaced by freezing cold and then nothing at all.

"Winston! Her harness! It's-"

"It's just rebooting. She'll be fine."

The seconds ticked by like years, but sure enough, the feeling slowly returned in her fingers, replaced by a clammy coolness that was nearly refreshing after that agonizing burning. Fire was not the thing she was most accustomed to. Her lungs stopped feeling so much like someone had perforated them, and eventually, she didn't know how long had passed, she could open her eyes. Everything went blurry for a few moments like she'd just come out of a very dark room and into the bright sunlight, but when they adjusted, above her, Amélie's golden eyes filled with tears, a rare sight in any capacity. Lena, finding her bearings once again, raised her arm weakly to touch Amélie's cheek, which made those glassy golden eyes spill over, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"No need to worry, love," Lena rasped, her throat and tongue dry as the desert. She worked her tongue a little bit and tried to swallow to wake up her saliva makers a little more, and something struck her as very funny very suddenly, making her body ache with rounds of laughter. Amélie's relief became colored with concern. "Holy shit," said Lena with a smile that cracked open her dry bottom lip. "I'm an immortal lesbian."

And then, Amélie started crying again, leaning her forehead down to touch Lena's, and she shook with silent, sobbing laughter. Only then did Lena realize that she was laying in Amélie's lap, held up at an angle. Amélie hadn't said anything yet, but Lena knew it was only a matter of time before her tears turned into comprehensible words, which would probably chastise Lena for scaring her so bad, but Lena's attention was drawn away from Amélie's relief to see several of her teammates, all crouching around a body.

Everything in her recoiled. Reyes. He wasn't dead.

"Amélie, take me over there."

Amélie pulled back, confusion as plain as the nose on her face, but she silently obliged. That was concerning enough to Lena as it was, but she wasn't about to give up on the whole mission just because she'd died a little.

Getting up was a real bitch.

Everything in her body seemed the type of groggy that only came after deep anaesthesia and a full put under for extensive surgery. In fact, every part of her felt like it had been scrambled and fried on a hot sidewalk and put back in.

She leaned heavily on Amélie's side to help her get up, and her heart thudded too loudly in her ears with every beat. Some part of her even wondered if there was still a bit of a leak in there that would eventually kill her because if that didn't, then this effort might. Lactic acid buildup. You were a corpse. Rigidity. You know, all the fun stuff Angela would talk about. Right? Or maybe that was something else.

It took some time for Lena to hobble over there even with the spindly Amélie's help, and Lena found herself balking at getting closer than she already was, so she remained on the outskirts of the small gathering, looking in like an outsider on a wake for a man who was still partially alive.

Everyone else looked a little more upright and bright eyed than Lena thought they would be, but their clothes and armor were still stained with the same soot, grime, and blood as she expected.

"Reyes- Gabriel, please…" Angela begged. She was making no attempt to hold in her tears. "I can help you… I know how to undo all of this now… Please…"

Fareeha held her shoulders as her fianceé wept. She was also crying, dark, wet lines streaming down her face, washing away the dust and smoky residue from the fires. Lena had never considered how hard this would be on her, for certain, but when she thought twice about it, she realized that this man, along with Jack, was the closest to a father figure she'd had in her most formative years. Only after she'd been sent away from Overwatch had she reconnected with her biological father.

Reyes, his skin fluctuating rapidly from fuzzy, indistinct, and black as pitch to the man that even Lena remembered, coughed and did his best to stop her. "No, Angela… I… I did this…" Lena felt her knees buckle at the quiet voice of the man she used to know. He shook his head with the same weakness that had prevented him from lifting his arm. "My life… I've done horrible things, mis amados, and I can't chance it again." He smiled, and Lena caught Jack's shoulders shaking. At some point, he'd taken his visor off and put on his glasses. "Forgive me, Angela, for all that I've done to you… And Fareeha, that I was never who you needed me to be when you did need me…"

Reyes reached into his pocket, and Amélie tensed, ready for the worst, but instead of shooting someone in the head like Lena knew Amélie feared, he pulled out a picture from between his armor plating and his shirt. Lena had seen the picture before - the picture of Jack, Reyes, and Ana all looking super serious as a joke picture for the three of them… except the middle had been torn out in part, removing Reyes from the picture.

He had looked away from Angela and to Jack, Reinhardt, and Ana.

"I… betrayed you…" And to Jesse and Genji who'd shuffled closer. "All of you."

Ana crouched and leaned closer. "Gabriel… we can fix this… together…"

Reyes shook his head. "My time is… gone… The best thing that I can do…" He smiled again, but it was a sad thing. "The best thing I can do is die."

"Gabe, get ahold of yourself!" Jack shouted, his voice cracking in a sob. "You don't have to!"

Reyes shook his head more forcefully. "Jack, just let me go. I would rather die a sane man than that… thing that I'd become." His eyes shone with brilliance and spark and pleading. "Let me go."

"This doesn't have to be the only way!" Jack yelled again, and Ana put her hand on his chest lightly, a cautioning and calming gesture.

Reyes smiled, pity in his eyes now. "I'm tired…"

For the first time since Lena had come back from the dead, she heard Amélie's angelic voice. "Let him go. It is his dying wish."

Everyone looked to her with some mixture of surprise, anger, regret, fear, and sadness.

"Amélie…" Reyes started, his voice growing more quiet - more pensive.

"No, you old fool," Amélie said, her voice more gentle than Lena had thought possible. "You did not do these things to me. Speak to them. I am not your priority."

He began to reach up with his left hand, his gauntlet fallen off and exposing his plain skin. "I'm… sorry… my friends…"

Reyes sighed, closing his eyes, and a long, rattling huff escaped his lips. Flecks of gold and black drifted upward from Reyes's skin, peeling away like a gift and a curse being reclaimed to the heavens. The distant drumbeat of Talon soldiers marching away in disorder followed by hooping and hollering from particularly aggressive allies began dying down, as if a hush was falling over the whole base complex. Athena's pleasant and familiar hum in the form of a stealthcraft grew louder in the absence of gunfire as she locked onto their position for rescue.

Angela's sobs increased in their volume, and the few huddled around Reyes's disintegrating body held one another. Lena's heart - recently repaired - broke under the weight of her friends' sorrow. They stood together for some time, their other, more newfound friends coming to their aid and comfort - an act of solidarity in a funeral for a man who had been tortured beyond the brink and had come back just long enough to say goodbye.

* * *

Everyone around Lena looked as numb as she felt. She hadn't anticipated this being the emotional journey that it ended up being, but she wasn't really sure what she expected at all. Not to go back to the safehouse in Drachten. Not to be sitting there alive... for the most part.

The plane hummed all around them, shuddering occasionally with pockets of turbulence. None of them moved.

No one spoke, and Lena could see the hollow eyes of all of her teammates. Angela's were nearly swollen shut from tears, her hands clasped before her, squeezing rhythmically. As though there was anything they could do to change what had happened.

Jack's face was buried in Jesse's shoulder, his cracked glasses on his lap. He held Ana's hand, and Ana held Reinhardt's, all of their eyes cast down to their shoes on the plane that was carrying them home. Lena didn't need to wonder what they were thinking. She knew. Amélie had lost one of the most important people in her life, but she'd gotten her back.

They hadn't. And they never would.

Fareeha's cheeks were as hollow as her expression. She rubbed Angela's back softly, and her eyes kept flicking nervously to her mother, but she was obviously too aware of the tenor of the room to break the silence.

Bastion did not beep. Lena wasn't sure if he was even online, or if he'd drifted off into a power saving mode.

Junkrat did not speak. Beside him, Mako sat on the floor in complete silence, but that wasn't misplaced. His breath was still heavy, his bandaged gut rising and falling softly. His chain was nowhere to be seen, and his bandolier of gas canisters was empty. One hand still clutched the small speaker Lucio had given him, though its charge had long since died.

Hana sat with her head in her hands, her jaw slack with sleep. Lu and Satya made an effort to prop up their unconscious partner, but they looked equally as exhausted. Every so often, their eyes would meet, but it never lasted. They were too exhausted to speak, and too worried for Hana.

Zarya held Mei quietly, unusual for her typical style of comfort. Mei had been crying ever since leaving, which struck Lena as odd. Her quiet sniffles were the only sound other than the rumbling.

Sombra looked at her screens and pilfered through tab after tab, her brow furrowed and her eyes wide and sad. There was something almost desperate about the way she tapped and swiped, as though the only way to deal with the ordeal was to lose herself in her work.

Zenyatta even looked somewhat downcast, though his fingers were intertwined with Genji's. There would be time for eulogies later, and sermons, and he would be there to help them grieve, but now wasn't the time.

Someone probably should have been piloting other than Winston, but he seemed to want to be alone as much as anyone else. Lena definitely wasn't fit to fly, and Hana was unconscious. Was he okay? Lena would go up and check on the big guy later, but for now...

For now. Lena looked up into Amélie's pensive, wary eyes, and something passed between them that only Lena could interpret, she was sure.

This had been hard enough on them all.

All in all, though… Everyone was there and alive. They would all bear scars, but Overwatch, the real Overwatch, who had fought and bled and died to keep the world safe, was here. And in a way, Gabe was there, too. They'd saved him, in a way. They'd come up against the monster that he'd become, and they'd put it down.

What he'd done was unforgivable, but he'd died as himself. And that was the way they would remember him. Maybe that was unfair to all the people he'd killed, and maybe it was unfair to his memory, but that didn't erase what he'd meant to them.

He was Gabriel Reyes. Father figure and lover and friend and mentor. Not as a tyrant and a murderer and a specter of death.

Lena looked around at her friends, all dealing with what had happened in their own ways.

And she smiled.

They were all alive, and they were going home.


End file.
